Interface with Other Laws: Complete Notes

This note brings together the PFRDA Act's relationship with other financial regulators, the provident fund system under the Code on Social Security, the service rules for Central Government NPS employees, and the general law on attachment, insolvency and succession as it affects the NPS corpus.

1. PFRDA and Other Financial Regulators

Map: RBI (banks, points of presence, trustee bank, payments), SEBI (markets, custodians, rating agencies, competing funds), IRDAI (annuities, insurance pension products), EPFO (provident fund and employee pension).
Overlaps: dual-regulated entities, annuities, sponsors, competing products and advice, with scope for regulatory arbitrage.
Coordination: the FSDC (2010, chaired by the Finance Minister), MoUs, the common SAT, and Section 43 directions.
Restructuring: the FSLRC (2013) proposed a unified agency; only the FMC-SEBI merger (2015) followed.
Principle: Section 55: laws apply cumulatively, read harmoniously.

2. EPF and the Code on Social Security, 2020

Code: largely in force from 21 November 2025; Chapter III (Sections 14 to 23) replaced the EPF Act, 1952; EPF, EPS and EDLI Schemes, 2026 notified on 29 June 2026.
EPF: compulsory for establishments with 20+ employees (wage ceiling ₹15,000), 12% + 12%, declared interest, EPFO under the Ministry of Labour.
NPS contrast: market-linked, mostly voluntary outside Government, partial annuitisation, PFRDA under the Ministry of Finance.
Links: corporate NPS alongside EPF, transfers from provident and superannuation funds, the ₹7.5 lakh tax cap, and gig worker schemes.

3. The CCS (Implementation of NPS) Rules, 2021

Made under the proviso to Article 309 (G.S.R. 227(E), 30 March 2021), the Rules govern the service side of the NPS for Central Government civil servants appointed from 1 January 2004: registration, contributions (10% and 14%), interest on delayed deposit (Rule 8), and benefits on superannuation, resignation, absorption, invalidation, dismissal and death. Rule 10 gives an option for old pension rules benefits on death, invalidation or disability, with the employee's share returned. UPS employees are governed by the 2025 UPS Rules.

4. Attachment, Insolvency and Succession

Attachment: no express protection in the PFRDA Act; Section 60 CPC may protect pension payments; the locked-in corpus is hard to attach before exit; a paid-out lump sum can be attached.
Intermediary insolvency: NPS Trust assets are outside the liquidation estate (IBC Section 36(4)); PFRDA can transfer them or appoint an Administrator.
Subscriber insolvency: treatment of the corpus unsettled.
Succession: corpus to nominee or legal heirs; the nominee generally holds for heirs (Sarbati Devi, Shakti Yezdani); personal law and wills govern; disputes go to civil courts.

⚠ Key point

The PFRDA Act operates in addition to other laws (Section 55). PFRDA shares the field with the RBI, SEBI, IRDAI and EPFO, coordinating through the FSDC, MoUs and the SAT. The Code on Social Security, 2020 now governs EPF, a compulsory, interest-based system parallel to the NPS. The CCS (Implementation of NPS) Rules, 2021 govern the service side for Central Government employees, including the Rule 10 option. The NPS corpus has no express protection from attachment, but trust ownership keeps it out of an intermediary's insolvency, and on death it passes to nominees or heirs subject to succession law.

5. Related Topics and Provisions

Public servants, good faith and other laws (Sections 47, 48 and 55)
The NPS across sectors
Death, disability, nomination and unclaimed amounts
PFRDA, IRDAI and SEBI compared