The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission in Kangra, Himachal Pradesh, has held the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) liable for deficiency in service after it arbitrarily reduced an employee’s service period while calculating his pension withdrawal benefit. The order, delivered by a bench comprising President Hemanshu Mishra and Members Arti Sood and Narayan Thakur, found no evidence to support EPFO’s claim of a non-contributory period in the employee’s service record.
The complainant, Abhinay Katoch, worked as a clerk at DAV Public School through an outsourcing agency from April 4, 2024, to March 15, 2025. Statutory provident fund and pension contributions were regularly deducted from his salary during this period and deposited with EPFO. His EPF passbook showed total pension contributions of ₹14,230. When Katoch applied for pension withdrawal benefits, EPFO credited only ₹12,750 to his bank account, a shortfall of ₹1,480.
EPFO’s defence rested on a claimed 16-day non-contributory period, which it said brought Katoch’s total service down to 10 months and 11 days. The organisation rounded this down to 10 months and applied a lower withdrawal calculation factor accordingly. The Commission rejected this reasoning outright.
“The EPFO had arbitrarily rounded down the complainant’s service period without evidence while calculating his pension withdrawal benefit, resulting in a short payment,” the Commission observed, according to LiveLaw. It found no documentation establishing that any non-contributory period had actually occurred.
This is not an isolated grievance against EPFO’s pension withdrawal calculations. The organisation has faced repeated consumer commission rulings over the past year for similar disputes, including cases involving delayed processing and miscalculated benefits in other states. The ruling is a reminder that EPFO service period records deserve independent verification before an employee’s final settlement is closed out, particularly where short or fixed-term contracts through outsourcing agencies are involved.
The Commission’s order directs EPFO to correct the shortfall, though the exact compensation and timeline for compliance were not detailed in available reporting. The case adds to a growing body of consumer forum rulings pushing EPFO toward greater accountability in how it calculates statutory dues for outsourced and contractual employees, a workforce segment that has expanded significantly across India’s services and education sectors in recent years.
