Employers not depositing EPF contributions to EPF Account – Remedies and legal actions

Every month employer has to deduct employee’s contribution from his or her monthly salary and deposit the same with EPFO in addition to their own contribution.

After depositing both contributions to EPFO account, it automatically gets deposited to employee’s individual EPF account.

Many companies in India do not deposit such contributions with EPFO even though they have deducted EPF contributions from employee’s salary.

In this article we will let you know what to do in cases where employer has not deposited EPF contributions to employee’s EPF Account.

In these types of situations, employee will be in deep trouble at the time of withdrawing money from his or her Employee Provident Fund account if precautionary measures are not taken by them. 

Whether your employer is depositing money to EPF account or not is a question that everyone will be asking for. Unfortunately you do not have any statement to see it online if your employer is not filing challans electronically.

However, you can check your online EPF account balance periodically to know the balance amount available in your account and tally it with the provident fund contribution made by your employer from your salary slips.

Provident fund balance can be known with your EPF account number and other details like your regional office of Employee Provident Fund and contribution details can be found out from your salary slip.

If you find any substantial difference then there is something wrong. Immediately take up this matter with your employer and ask them to provide all the details that are contributed to your Employee Provident Fund account.

Recommended Read: How to know your EPF balance online

You can also register yourself as a member in EPFO portal to download your e-passbook which will provide you all the details in your Provident Fund account.

Recommended Read: How to view your PF balance online – EPASSBOOK

EPFO website has a list of defaulters who have not deposited contributions to the Employee Provident Fund or EPF account. You need to first check if your employer is one of them who have not deposited your contributions to Employee Provident Fund or EPF account.

Click here to know the list of default employer.

It is the responsibility of your employer to deposit Employee Provident Fund contribution in time after it’s deduction from employee’s salary. Employer cannot retain such amount with them.

If you find your employer not depositing Employee Provident Fund contribution to your EPF account then you can take following actions against your employer;

1. File a written criminal case with the police department against your employer. You need to file it in the police station which comes under the jurisdiction of your employer. You can support your case with the salary slip that is provided to you every month.
2. In addition to the FIR you can write an email to [email protected].
3. File a written complaint against your employer in EPFO office. You can get address, phone number and email address of the respective offices from here.
4. In addition to all these you can file a RTI to the regional EPFO by mentioning your EPF account number in it.

If you are working in a big MNC or a private limited company which has good reputation in market then you need not worry about your EPF account as these companies will be depositing EPF contributions in time. However, you should take precautionary measure to avoid difficulties in future.

If such delay happened then the employer will not only be liable for the dues but also liable for interest penalty based on the number of days delay in payment. Such interest amount will vary based on the number of days delayed.