PF Interest - Denied As Inactive Account

hi all - Need a Legal Opinion on this Issue.

I was employed with ICICI Bank (2004-2006) who maintains a Trust A/c For PF. In 2006 i joined an organisation which holds PF account with the EPFO pune. i had submitted my request for transfer of PF funds from ICICI to my new PF account with EPFO -pune thru my organisation. I was told the transfer wuld take place in 18-24 mnths as it was manually done.

In 2010 when gvt passed the rule for non payment of interest - i checked the my accounts and was shocked that it was not done. I started a follow up with PF office as my organisation raised their hands to help me in followup. EPF informed that the forms were lost in shifting and hence i needed to submit new forms again - I had submitted around 6 times with in a span of 1.5 yrs and then i stopped and raised my concern with PF office for misplacing forms regularly and stopped submission. whenever a greivance was raised online to EPFO - the reply was - transaction in process forms sent . Later in 2012/2013 -

EPF office came up with a reply that EPF does not process request for transfer of funds from trust a/cs and it had to be initiated directly with ICICI. in vain i submitted forms directly to ICICI and they processed very quickly and sent the funds but paid interest only till aug 2009. since I had lost interest on the amount from 2009 - 2013 I again claimed/complained to EPF for payment of the same since the forms wer submitted to them in 2006-2008 itself but they have not acted on it. Had they even intimated this during 2009-13 i would have not lost the interest as i would have initiated teh transfer directly.

Its a loss of around 40K

please help

Is the EPF not responsible for this loss of mine ? was the staff not aware of the old rule earlier.. when i complained regularly - on what basis can they reject the plea of interest payment /loss that i had incurred.

also they have informed that i need to check with my company / ICICI for interest payment

i do not understand why i need to go to icici/ my organisation as the forms were with EPFO pune and they had not acted upon it at the right time - neither rejecetd my form or informed me but only lost and always said it was in transit..

your advice / help would be really helpful and appreciated

Dear Kavita2803,
If you have a proof of submission of PF transfer form through your present employer to RPFC Pune within a due course on your joining it and also the proofs of your follow ups and re-submission of the forms six times during the span of 1&1/2 years after 2010, you need to make proper representation with RPFC Pune to get the due credit of interest in your account.
You should get the interest in these circumstances since it is not your fault.
ICICI is correct in not giving you interest after 2009 since your account with them was inactive since August 2006 onwards. Also, ICICI certainly will not bear the burden of interest when ICICI is not wrong and someone else is wrong.

Thankyou so much
I made several representations and also spoke with the commissioner and also submitted a letter/with all the proofs but still - I have been denied the interest payment and hence i wanted to know the best way to put forth this case and get the interest amount

We did face the same problem with one of our employee, who got retired in 2012. But his PF was with EPFO since the beginning.

In his case, he was transferred from one of our sister company to another sister company in 2004, and we had submitted his transfer form more than 5 times. We had acknowledgement copy of nearly all the transfer forms. He was retired in July 2012 and his PF got transferred in November 2012 and after that he got his PF dues. As per EPFO rule, an interest amount of around Rs.1 lac was not given to him.

The clerk handling our account at EPFO informed me that he would not get his interest amount at any cost. Hence, we drafted a letter to PF commissioner with acknowledgment copies of all Form 13 [transfer forms] and submitted the letter, taking the acknowledgement on this letter, and i also met the commissioner and he asked me to meet the chief cashier there. The clerk was called and asked for a complete report in writing for non-transfer of PF to his new account. This case was resolved and our employee got this interest amount in full.

Hence, i would suggest you to follow the same procedure.

Please submit a letter in writing and take acknowledgement. Also you can put up this case in Lok Adalat of EPFO. You can find out the date of this Lok Adalat from their website or thier office.

Hope this will resolve your problem and you get your dues.

All the best !!

I donot think that you will be able to get any interest from RPFC for the simple reason that he was not having your money with him to pay interest on it for whatever delay that has happened. The money was with ICICI. They have given interest as per law. You cannot claim interest from another agency that did not have the money in the first place! RPFC may have erred in not informing you the rule position correctly and advising you to process the case with ICICI in the first place. But that is only a mistake. For that you can at best ask for compensation under some other law but cannot claim interest under the EPF Act and scheme. You should therefore explore the other possibilities, in consultation with a lawyer instead of wasting your time with RPFC, claiming interest.