Retirement fund body EPFO has asked its regional centres to implement the Centre’s decision to provide married daughters of deceased government employees/pensioners with family pension even during the pendency of a divorce case.

As per existing rules, divorced daughters are eligible to get family pension only if a decree of divorce has been issued by the competent court during the life time of at least one of the parents.

However, the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions had been receiving several grievances that divorce proceedings were long-drawn, sometimes even going beyond the lifetime of a pensioner or his/her spouse, an office memorandum issued on Thursday by the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) said.

“The matter has been examined in this department in consultation with the Department of Expenditure and it has been decided to grant family pension to a divorced daughter in such cases where the divorce proceedings had been filed in a competent court during the life-time of the employee/pensioner or his/her spouse but divorce took place after their death — provided the claimant fulfils all other conditions for grant of family pension under Rule 54 of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 1972. In such cases, the family pension will commence from the date of divorce,” the memo clarified, urging EPFO field offices to implement the same.

The EPFO has connected with the LIMBS Portal, launched by the Department of Legal Affairs, Ministry of Law, to monitor the conduct of cases on behalf of the Centre. “Instruction has been issued to all offices of EPFO for monitoring of Legal Information Management and Briefing System (LIMBS). It is further informed that EPFO has already launched an e-court and legal dashboard for monitoring and compliance of legal and statutory cases,” an official release said.

Also, a facility has been launched for transfer of service of members in the member interface and employer interface under the unified portal, replacing the functionality of the erstwhile OTCP portal.

“Members can opt to submit their transfer request online using the online services transfer request functionality under the member interface,” it said.

In addition, EPFO field offices can also monitor compliance in respect of multiple unit establishments having employees working at different locations and branches but the payment of PF dues of all the workers is made under a single PF code number, the release added.