New rule for EPF death claim: Now physical claims can be processed without seeding Aadhaar

The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) stated that it has received specific references from field offices indicating that they are unable to seed and authenticate Aadhaar in cases of death of EPF members. In such cases, filed officers were unable to process the aforementioned physical claims, which resulted in an unnecessary delay in the timely disbursement of payments to the affected claimants, the EPSO stated in a circular issued on May 17, 2024.

Note that Aadhaar details cannot be updated or corrected after a member passes away, which presents challenges for the field offices.

Also read: Faster EPF claim settlement: EPFO multi-location claim settlement to speed up member claims

What are the issues EPF field offices faced
The delay would occur in case of inaccurate/incomplete member details in Aadhaar, unavailability of Aadhaar in respect of pre-Aadhaar death cases, deactivated Aadhaar, technical error in validating Aadhaar from UIDAI database, etc.

What is the solution
Consequently, it has been decided that going forward, in all such death cases, processing physical claims without seeding Aadhaar may be permitted as a temporary measure, but only with the proper approval of the OIC in an e-office file duly recording the details of verification done to confirm the deceased’s membership and the genuineness of the claimants. Preventing any fraudulent withdrawals can be done in addition to other due diligence measures that the OIC deems appropriate.

Also read: New EPF rule on auto withdrawal claims under 68J; check details

Who is it applicable for?
The above instructions would apply only to those cases where the details of the member are correct in UAN but inaccurate/incomplete in Aadhaar database. According to the EPFO circular dated May 17, 2024, “Wherever, the data in Aadhaar are correct but inaccurate/incomplete in UAN, the instructions issued in Para 6.9 and 6.10 of JD SOP version-2 dated 26.03.2024 will be strictly adhered to by the field offices to rectify the data in the UAN, seed & validate/authenticate the Aadhaar so as to comply with the instructions as issued in the earlier Circular dated 24.09.2020 vide reference, without any deviation whatsoever.”

Death of member without Aadhaar
As per the JD SOP version-2 dated 26.03.2024, “ In case of the death of a member without an Aadhaar, then the nominee’s Aadhaar will be saved in the system, and the nominee may be allowed to sign the JD form. Other processes will remain the same. There may be cases where the deceased member has not filed a nomination during his lifetime. In the absence of a valid nomination, one of the family members/legal heirs of the member may be allowed to attest the JD and submit his/her Aadhaar with the consent of other family members/legal heirs.”