EPFO Officers' Body Objects to Appointment of Additional CPFC

New Delhi, Nov 24 (PTI) Employees' Provident Fund Organisation Officers' Association has objected to the appointment of Amit Katoch as Additional Central Provident Fund Commissioner (Headquarters) by the Appointment Committee of Cabinet, and said it is against legal provisions.

The association has written to personnel, public grievances and pensions, department of personnel and training, and said "the said appointment (of Amit Katoch) without the approval of Central Board of Trustees (CBT apex decision making body of EPFO) is contrary to the provisions of the Employees Provident Funds & Miscellaneous Provisions Act 1952".

The Act, it said, specifies that other than CPFC (Central Provident Fund Commissioner) & FA & CAO (Financial Advisor & Chief Administrative Officer), for which the central government is the appointing authority, power to make appointments to all other posts in the EPFO vests with the CBT.

The officers' body urged in the letter that the orders appointing Katoch as Additional CPFC (HQ), EPFO, may be reconsidered in view of submissions.

Katoch, a 1998 batch officer of The Indian Post & Telecommunication Accounts and Finance Service cadre, was appointed as Additional CPFC (HQ), EPFO, by the Appointment Committee of the Cabinet vide its order issued on November 20.

Responding to a query, the EPFO said, "Appointing Amit Katoch as Additional CPFC (HQ) in EPFO is not unprecedented. It has been a usual practice of appointing of deputationists in EPFO, earlier also such appointments of officers other than FA & CAO have been made."

The present deputation is also vice an earlier incumbent Neelam Sanghi who was a Indian Railway Accounts Service (IRAS) officer and worked in EPFO from October 1, 2018 to August 5, 2022, the letter said.

"The post has been lying vacant for more than a year. The present order is not a new posting intervention by DoPT or MoLE (Department of Personnel and Training, Ministry of Labour and Employment) and is in accordance with rules and precedence," the EPFO said.

An employers' representative in the CBT, K E Raghunathan, told PTI that such action of not taking officers into confidence and violation of the Employees' Provident Funds & Miscellaneous Provisions Act 1952, if any, should be avoided.

It (such action) will demoralise the officers of the EPFO, especially when the body is growing in stature with more Rs 25 lakh crore corpus and over 6.5 crore subscribers, Raghunathan said.

Another EPFO trustee and General Secretary Hind Mazdoor Sabha Harbhajan Singh Sidhu said this appointment is objectionable and unlawful.

He said the right to appoint officers and employees lies with the CBT as per the Employees' Provident Funds & Miscellaneous Provisions Act 1952.