Death in Service Under NPS: Family Pension Under Old Rules or NPS Corpus

Which route applies: the answer sits in one form

Under Rule 10 of the CCS (Implementation of National Pension System) Rules, 2021, every government servant covered by NPS has to choose, in writing, what the family will receive if the employee dies in service or is invalided out. The choice is between benefits under the CCS (Pension) Rules and the CCS (Extraordinary Pension) Rules, which means a regular family pension, and benefits under NPS, which means the accumulated corpus paid out under PFRDA's exit regulations.

The option is given on a prescribed form at the time of joining, and the DoPPW office memorandum of 26 October 2022 required serving employees already in NPS to give it too. The Head of Office places it in the service book, and copies go to the record keeper through the DDO and the Pay and Accounts Office. A family details form goes with it.

The employee can revise the option any number of times before retirement. After a death in service, the last option on record is final. The 2022 memorandum says in so many words that the family has no right to revise it.

So the first thing to get is a certified copy of that form, with the page of the service book where it is recorded. Everything else follows from it.

If no option was ever recorded

Many NPS employees never filled in the form, or filled it in and the office lost it. For these cases, the 2022 memorandum sets a default. If the employee died before completing 15 years of service, or died within three years of the 2021 rules coming into force, the family gets family pension under the CCS (Pension) Rules or, where applicable, the Extraordinary Pension Rules. The 2021 rules were notified on 30 March 2021, so the three-year protection runs to about the end of March 2024.

In every other case, meaning a death after March 2024 with 15 years or more of service and no recorded option, the default is the NPS route under the PFRDA exit regulations. This is where most disputes arise. A widow is told that because her husband had 17 years, only the corpus is payable, and the corpus buys a far smaller annuity than family pension would have given.

Do not accept that answer without checking three things. First, the date of death against March 2024. Second, how the 15 years have been counted. Third, whether there is any sign, in a letter, an email, an e-HRMS entry or a copy kept at home, that the employee did give an option. Families often find the form in a drawer at home, with the office receipt on it.

If the employee was never even asked to give the option, despite the 2022 memorandum, the family may have an argument that the office's own failure should not decide the matter. That argument is not settled, and it should be put forward honestly as an argument, not as a right.

What the family receives on each route

Family pension under the old rules: how much and for whom

Rule 50 of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 governs family pension. For a death in service, the family gets the enhanced rate of 50 per cent of the last pay drawn for ten years from the day after death. After that, it falls to the ordinary rate of 30 per cent. The minimum family pension is Rs 9,000 a month. Dearness relief is added at the rate in force.

The order of eligibility matters. The widow or widower comes first. Children follow: sons and unmarried daughters up to 25, and in some cases widowed or divorced daughters and children with a disability for life, subject to income limits. Dependent parents can receive family pension where there is no spouse or eligible child. Our guides on family pension for children up to 25 and on a family member's name missing from the family details form deal with the disputes these rules produce.

Two features make old-rules family pension worth fighting for. Dearness relief is added twice a year, so the figure keeps pace with prices, and each pay commission revises it, as the 8th Central Pay Commission set up in November 2025 is expected to do. An annuity bought from a corpus does neither. Over thirty or forty years of a widow's life, that difference usually matters more than the starting figure.

A widow who remarries keeps family pension in some cases and not others, depending on whether there are children and on her own income. That question has its own rules and is not covered here.

Put simply, for a young family the old rules usually pay far more, for far longer, than the corpus of an employee who died in the first ten or fifteen years of service.

When the death is linked to duty: extraordinary pension

If the death was caused by an injury, accident or disease attributable to government service, the family may be entitled to extraordinary family pension under the CCS (Extraordinary Pension) Rules, 2023, which replaced the 1939 rules. These rules pay at higher rates than ordinary family pension and attach conditions about how the death came about.

Under the 2021 NPS rules and the 2022 memorandum, where the old-rules option applies and the death is attributable to government service, the family receives benefits under the Extraordinary Pension Rules. The decision that the death was attributable is taken by the competent authority on the basis of reports and, in many cases, medical opinion.

Collect every paper that shows the link: the duty roster, the movement order, the FIR or accident report, the hospital record and the post-mortem report if there was one. A road accident while travelling on duty, an assault while carrying out official work and an illness caused by working conditions are the common examples. A refusal to treat the death as attributable is a separate decision, and it can be questioned on its own.

What happens to the NPS corpus

Whichever route applies, the employee's NPS account is closed. What happens to the money depends on the route.

If the family gets old-rules family pension, the government's contributions and the returns earned on them go back to the government account. The employee's own contributions, with their returns, are paid to the nominee or legal heirs as a lump sum. Families are sometimes surprised that the balance they saw on the PRAN statement shrinks. That is because a large part of it was the government's share, which is being exchanged for a lifelong pension.

If the NPS route applies, the whole corpus, including the government's share, is paid to the nominee under PFRDA's exit regulations. For government-sector subscribers, a part can be taken as a lump sum and a larger part goes to buy an annuity for the family. PFRDA has revised these regulations more than once, so ask the record keeper or the nodal office for the split that applies on the date of the claim.

One special case: if the option was for family pension but no eligible family member exists, for example an unmarried employee whose parents were not dependent, the memorandum treats the option as invalid and the NPS benefits go to the legal heirs. Before the corpus is paid out, check whether contributions are missing; our page on government contributions missing from an NPS account explains how gaps are traced.

Death gratuity and the payments that come either way

Death gratuity is payable to the family of an NPS employee under the CCS (Payment of Gratuity under NPS) Rules, 2021, whichever route applies. It is worked out as a multiple of the last emoluments, meaning basic pay plus DA: two times for service under one year, six times for one to five years, twelve times for five to eleven years, twenty times for eleven to twenty years, and, for twenty years or more, half a month's emoluments for every completed six months of service, up to 33 times. The overall ceiling is Rs 25 lakh. Our guide on gratuity ceilings and common errors covers mistakes in that calculation.

Leave encashment for earned leave and half pay leave at the employee's credit, the Central Government Employees Group Insurance Scheme amount, and any balance in other funds are also paid separately. They do not depend on the Rule 10 option.

The family may also apply for compassionate appointment. That is a separate claim, decided on the family's financial condition, and receiving family pension does not by itself defeat it. See our page on compassionate appointment claims and the guide on whether family pension can defeat a compassionate claim.

Older deaths, UPS members and railway staff

Deaths between 2004 and March 2021 happened before the 2021 rules existed. For many such families, the government issued interim orders from 2009 onwards allowing family pension under the old rules on a provisional basis. If a death in that period was settled only by paying out the corpus, and nobody told the family about those orders, the file deserves a fresh look. The default protection for deaths within three years of the 2021 rules may also help.

Employees who moved to the Unified Pension Scheme in 2025 are covered by Rule 19 of the CCS (Implementation of UPS under NPS) Rules, 2025. The DoPPW memorandum of 29 October 2025 explains it on the same lines: family pension or extraordinary pension under the old rules, or the UPS family payout, depending on the option or default, with the government's share going back if the old rules apply.

Railway employees have their own rules. The Railway Services (Pension) Rules, 2026 replaced the 1993 rules in January 2026, and separate railway rules for UPS followed in September 2026. The principle is the same, but cite the railway rules, not the CCS rules, in any railway claim. A related topic, the employee who is invalided out rather than dying in service, is covered in our guide on invalidation while in NPS.

Where these claims usually go wrong

• The office treats the corpus as the only option. Dealing hands used to NPS withdrawals send the family straight to PFRDA forms without checking Rule 10.
• The option form is missing from the service book. It was given but never pasted in, or it was in an old physical book that was not carried into the e-Service Book.
• Service is miscounted against the 15-year line. Probation, training or leave periods are added or dropped in a way that changes the default.
• The family has already taken a lump sum. Money paid out of the government's share may have to be adjusted before pension starts, and the office uses this as a reason to delay.
• Names do not match. The spouse's name in the family details form differs from the Aadhaar card or the marriage record, and the claim stalls for months.

Two practical tips from Advocate B.K. Singh

• Ask for the service book before you sign anything. Advocate B.K. Singh's first step in these files is a written request for a certified copy of the full service book and the Rule 10 option, made before the family puts its signature on any NPS withdrawal form. Once the corpus is drawn, the conversation with the office becomes about refunds rather than entitlement.
• Search the house as carefully as the office. He has found that the employee's own copy of the option form, often with the receipt stamp, turns up in a file at home. If you find one, do not hand over the original; give the office a self-attested copy and keep the original safe for the Tribunal.

What the family should do in the first three months

1. Inform the office in writing

   Send a letter to the Head of Office with a copy of the death certificate. Ask in the same letter for the family pension papers, death gratuity and leave encashment, and for a certified copy of the service book and the Rule 10 option.

2. Hold off on NPS withdrawal

   If the office hands over PFRDA withdrawal forms, take them but do not sign until the Rule 10 position is clear. Ask the office in writing which route it says applies, and why.

3. Gather family records

   Collect the marriage certificate, children's birth certificates, disability certificates if any, and proof of parents' dependence where relevant. Make sure the names match across documents.

4. File the claim

   Submit the family pension claim, or the NPS claim if that is the route, with all enclosures. Keep a dated acknowledgement. If the office refuses one, send it by speed post.

5. Object in writing to any wrong default

   If the office says the corpus route applies and you disagree, write a representation setting out the date of death, the service counted and any evidence of an option. Ask for a reasoned decision.

6. Follow up after 60 days

   If nothing has moved, write to the controlling officer or the ministry with copies. Keep every reply. Six months after the representation, or earlier on a clear refusal, the Tribunal can be approached.

Papers the family should collect

How long it takes and what it costs

Where the family's case is filed

A dispute over family pension of a central government employee is a service matter and goes to the Central Administrative Tribunal under Section 14 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985. A family member, as the person entitled to the benefit, can file an Original Application. It is usually filed at the bench covering the place where the employee was last posted, and benches often allow families to file where they now live; check with the registry. Our page on family pension claims before CAT explains what such an application contains.

Families of CAPF personnel, such as CRPF, BSF or CISF members who died in service, generally go to the High Court, not CAT. Families of PSU and bank employees, who are not covered by these central rules, also go to the High Court or a forum under their own regulations. Families of state government employees follow their state's NPS rules and approach the State Administrative Tribunal where one exists, or the High Court.

Before filing, a representation to the department is usually expected. Where the family is in genuine hardship and the office is simply not deciding, the Tribunal can be asked to direct a decision within a fixed time.

Arrears run from the date of death

Family pension is payable from the day after the death. If the office takes a year, or ten, to sanction it, the arrears go back to that date. The Supreme Court in S.K. Mastan Bee v. General Manager, South Central Railway (2003) placed the duty to work out and offer family pension on the employer, not on the widow.

In September 2026, in Maya Banerjee v. Union of India, 2026 INSC 959, the Supreme Court followed Mastan Bee rather than the three-year arrears limit in Union of India v. Tarsem Singh (2008). It ordered family pension to a railway employee's widow from the date of death, more than 25 years earlier, with interest at 6 per cent. The three-year limit is still applied in many pay disputes, and departments will still argue it, so the law should be checked when you file.

None of this is a reason to wait. Interest rarely makes up for years without income, and a family that writes in the first three months has its papers and witnesses at hand. For more on how delay affects pension arrears, see our guide on the three-year limit on pension arrears.

Next steps for the family

Get the service book and the Rule 10 option, do not sign NPS withdrawal papers until the route is clear, and put every objection in writing. If the office insists on the corpus route and you believe family pension is due, a representation with the evidence is the first step, and our page on refusal of family pension to a widow, child or parent sets out what comes after it.

Grief makes paperwork hard, and offices sometimes take advantage of that without meaning to. A relative who can sit with the papers for an afternoon is worth asking.

If you would like your papers looked at, or want to keep up with changes in the NPS and family pension rules, you can contact Advocate B.K. Singh.