In connection with the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India’s judgement dated November 4, 2022 in the matter of Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation and others v. Sunil Kumar B. and others (“November Judgement”) (key aspects of which are available here), the Indian Ministry of Labour and Employment had recently issued two notifications.

In summary, the notifications called for an additional contribution of 1.16% to the Employees’ Pension Scheme, 1995 (“EPS”), required to be borne by the employer. Accordingly, in respect of employees who have exercised joint option to contribute to EPS on monthly salary higher than the wage ceiling under the EPF Act, the employer’s contribution to the EPS is now 9.49% of basic wages, dearness allowance and retaining allowance instead of the current contribution of 8.33%. To implement these changes, applicable provisions of the Code on Social Security, 2020 (“SS Code”) were brought into force.

Alongside these notifications, the initial deadline of four months provided by the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in its November Judgement for the eligible employees to exercise the joint option to contribute to EPS on monthly salary higher than the wage ceiling under the EPF Act, was extended by Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (“EPFO”) till June 26, 2023.

One of our previous employment law updates which covered these developments can be found here.

New Deadlines

The EPFO has now further extended the deadline for the eligible employees to exercise the joint option from June 26, 2023 to July 11, 2023. Additionally, the period for uploading wage details of applicant pensioners / members by the employers has also been extended to September 30, 2023.