CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021

The Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 2021 are the statutory code governing pension, gratuity and family pension for central government civil employees appointed on or before 31 December 2003, the Old Pension Scheme cohort. The President made them under the proviso to Article 309 and Article 148(5) of the Constitution, and the Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare notified them as G.S.R. 868(E) under Notification No. 38/3/2017-P&PW(A) dated 20 December 2021, in supersession of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 1972.

They run to 87 rules in 14 chapters, with 13 Forms and 13 Formats. Rule 44(1) fixes the pension at 50% of emoluments, subject to a minimum of Rs. 9,000 and a maximum of Rs. 1,25,000 a month. Rule 45 fixes the retirement gratuity at one-fourth of emoluments for each completed six-monthly period of qualifying service. Rule 50 fixes the family pension at 30% of pay, with an enhanced 50% for a limited period. Rule 52 governs dearness relief. Everything else in the rulebook exists to decide who qualifies, on what pay, and how the money reaches the bank.

The re-enactment did not change what anyone is paid. It renumbered the entire code, which is why a citation to a 1972 rule number no longer resolves: the family pension moved from Rule 54 to Rule 50, the power to withhold a pension from Rule 9 to Rule 8, and dearness relief from Rule 55-A to Rule 52. It also put statutory timelines on the sanction of a pension and made the government liable to pay interest where it is late.

This is the statute hub for the Old Pension Scheme cluster on salary-calculator.in. The central government pension article is the concept hub, explaining how a pension works and comparing the three schemes. This page documents the 2021 Rules as a legal instrument: the rule map, what each significant rule fixes, and the amendment and validation history. Every detailed mechanism, the qualifying-service counting, the commutation factor, the family-pension order of entitlement, the gratuity computation, lives in a child article this page links rather than restates.

Scope: who the 2021 Rules cover

Rule 2 applies the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 to government servants appointed on or before 31 December 2003, including civilian government servants in the Defence Services, who are appointed substantively to civil services and posts in connection with the affairs of the Union and are borne on pensionable establishments. The date of appointment is the whole test. An employee appointed on or after 1 January 2004 is on the National Pension System, a defined-contribution scheme under the CCS (Implementation of National Pension System) Rules, 2021, with the Unified Pension Scheme available as an option from 1 April 2025.

Rule 2 then names eight classes the rules do not apply to: railway servants; persons in casual and daily rated employment; persons paid from contingencies; persons entitled to the benefit of a Contributory Provident Fund; members of the All India Services; persons locally recruited for service in diplomatic, consular or other Indian establishments in foreign countries; persons employed on contract, except where the contract provides otherwise; and persons whose terms and conditions of service are regulated by or under the Constitution or any other law in force. Railway servants have their own pension rules, and the All India Services are governed by the All India Services (Death-cum-Retirement Benefits) Rules, 1958.

The Explanation to Rule 2 pulls four groups back in. Induction training completed on or before 31 December 2003, followed by regular appointment after that date, counts where the training was an essential condition of appointment, the trainee drew a salary or stipend, and the period counted as qualifying service under the 1972 Rules. An employee first appointed on or before 31 December 2003 under a different central pension scheme, or in a state government or an autonomous body with a non-contributory scheme similar to the 1972 Rules, and later appointed to a post these rules cover, is brought in subject to the conditions for counting that earlier service. So the pre-2004 test is about when government service began, not about which office issued the first appointment letter.

Where a disablement or a death is attributable to or aggravated by government service, the more generous benefit comes from the CCS (Extraordinary Pension) Rules, 2023 rather than from these rules, as the extraordinary pension and disability and invalid pension articles cover.

The two rules that reach National Pension System employees

Explanation (5) to Rule 2 of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 makes Rule 39 and Rule 50 available to an employee appointed after 31 December 2003 who is covered by the CCS (Implementation of National Pension System) Rules, 2021. On death in service, or on discharge on the ground of invalidation, the invalid pension under Rule 39 and the family pension under Rule 50 are payable where that employee exercised the option under Rule 10 of the NPS Rules, or where the default option applies to the case.

This is the single most commonly missed point about the scope of the 2021 Rules. The rulebook is described everywhere, including in its own Rule 2, as the pre-2004 code, and it is, for the retirement benefits an employee draws on superannuation. But the family of an NPS employee who dies in harness does not draw a market-linked annuity by default: it draws a family pension computed at 30% of pay under Rule 50, with the enhanced 50% rate for ten years, exactly as a pre-2004 family would. The CCS (Implementation of NPS) Rules and NPS exit rules articles carry the option mechanics and Form 1.

The 14 chapters and 87 rules

The CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 are arranged in 14 chapters that follow the life of a pension case, from who the rules cover, through what counts as service and what pay the calculation runs on, to the classes of pension, the amounts, and the machinery that gets the money to a bank account.

Two chapters carry nearly half the rulebook. Chapter III, on qualifying service, runs to twenty rules, because every kind of service, leave, training, suspension, deputation and interruption needs its own counting rule. Chapter X, on determination and authorisation, runs to eighteen, because the procedure from the retirement list to the Pension Payment Order has that many named stages. Chapter IX is a single rule, Rule 52, and Chapter VIII only two.

The full rule map follows. It is the concordance a reader needs when an Office Memorandum, a court order or a departmental note cites a rule number without saying which rulebook it belongs to.

Rule 5 is the rule that decides which version of the code applies to a given case. A claim to pension or family pension is regulated by the provisions in force at the time the government servant retires, is retired, is discharged, is allowed to resign or dies. Rule 5(2) treats that day as the last completed working day, and the date of death likewise, which is why the ninety-day windows counted from a technical resignation run from the day of relief and not from the day after.

Classes of pension: Rules 33 to 41

Chapter V of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 provides nine grants across Rules 33 to 41, each with its own trigger. The class decides the conditions; Rule 44 then decides the amount for all of them.

A superannuation pension under Rule 33 is granted on retirement at the prescribed age, which is 60 under Fundamental Rule 56, and the superannuation article covers it. A retiring pension under Rule 34 is granted to a servant who retires on his own volition before superannuation under Rule 43 or under Fundamental Rule 56, and to a surplus employee who opts for voluntary retirement under the Special Voluntary Retirement Scheme; the retiring pension article covers it. Rules 35 and 36 provide a pension on absorption in or under a state government, and in or under a corporation, company or body, and Rules 37 and 38 deal with absorption on the conversion of a government department into a public sector undertaking or a central autonomous body, which the permanent absorption article covers.

An invalid pension under Rule 39 is granted on retirement for a permanent bodily or mental incapacity certified by a medical authority. The proviso to Rule 44(1) waives the ten-year qualifying-service condition for an invalid pension where the servant fulfils the conditions in Rule 39(9), so an employee invalidated after four years still draws a pension at 50% of emoluments, as the invalid pension article explains. A compulsory retirement pension under Rule 40 is granted where a servant is compulsorily retired as a penalty, at not less than two-thirds and up to the full compulsory retirement pension computed under Rule 44(4). A compassionate allowance under Rule 41 may be granted, in a deserving case, to a servant dismissed or removed from service and so forfeiting pension, up to two-thirds of the pension that would have been admissible on superannuation.

Compensation pension is the class that did not survive the re-enactment. Under the 1972 Rules it was granted to an employee discharged on the abolition of a permanent post. The 2021 Rules provide no separate class for it, and an employee discharged on abolition is dealt with through the retiring pension on the surplus-staff route under Rule 34(1)(b), as the compensation pension article explains.

Premature and voluntary retirement: Rules 42 and 43

Chapter VI of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 holds exactly two rules, and they are mirror images. Rule 42 is the government’s power, Rule 43 is the employee’s right, and both produce a retiring pension calculated under Rule 44.

Rule 42(1) provides that at any time after a government servant has completed thirty years of qualifying service, the appointing authority may require him to retire in the public interest, and Rule 42(2) requires notice in writing at least three months before the date of retirement, or pay and allowances in lieu of the notice period. This is the pension-rules limb of premature retirement, and it sits alongside the age-based and service-based review under Fundamental Rule 56(j) and 56(l). Rule 42 is the successor to Rule 48 of the 1972 Rules.

Rule 43(1) provides that at any time after a government servant has completed twenty years of qualifying service, he may retire by giving notice of not less than three months in writing to the appointing authority, and is then entitled to a retiring pension calculated under Rule 44. The proviso requires him to request an estimate of his qualifying service before giving the notice. This is the statutory basis of voluntary retirement, and it is the successor to Rule 48-A of the 1972 Rules. Two different rule numbers under two different rulebooks, for what most employees call the same thing, is the most common citation error in this area.

Amount of pension: Rule 44

Rule 44(1) of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 fixes the pension at 50% of emoluments or of average emoluments, whichever is more beneficial, for a government servant who retires under Rule 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38 or 39 after completing not less than ten years of qualifying service, subject to a minimum of Rs. 9,000 a month and a maximum of Rs. 1,25,000 a month. Both bounds are in the rule text itself, not in an executive order. The maximum is half of Rs. 2,50,000, the highest pay in the pay matrix.

Below ten years of qualifying service there is no monthly pension. Rule 44(2) grants a service gratuity instead, calculated at half a month’s emoluments for every completed six-monthly period of qualifying service, and the service gratuity article works the figure through. Rule 44(3) protects an employee whose emoluments were reduced during the last ten months of service: average emoluments under Rule 32 are then treated as the emoluments for the service-gratuity calculation, and the dearness allowance admissible on the date of retirement is treated as part of emoluments for that purpose.

Rule 44(4)(a) handles the compulsory retirement pension, setting it as a portion or percentage of the superannuation pension computed under Rule 44(1), which the disciplinary authority fixes at not less than two-thirds. Rule 44(6) grants the additional pension in old age, and it is the successor to Rule 49(2-A) of the 1972 Rules.

The addition runs from the first day of the month in which the pensioner attains the age, carries dearness relief on the enhanced figure, and applies to a family pensioner on the recipient’s own age. There is no addition at 65, 70 or 75. The central government pension calculation article and the Rule 44 pension calculator work a full case through.

Retirement and death gratuity: Rule 45

Rule 45(1)(a) of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 grants a retirement gratuity equal to one-fourth of emoluments for each completed six-monthly period of qualifying service, subject to a maximum of 16.5 times emoluments. Emoluments for the gratuity means basic pay plus dearness allowance on the date of retirement, a wider base than the pension base, which is why the gratuity and the pension are computed on different figures for the same employee. Five years of qualifying service is the minimum.

Rule 45(1)(b) grants a death gratuity where a government servant dies while in service, on a slab scale with no minimum-service bar, paid to the family in the manner in Rule 47(1).

The ceiling is the point most often stated wrongly. The first proviso to Rule 45(1) caps the retirement gratuity and the death gratuity at twenty lakh rupees, and that is still the figure in the rule text. The Rs. 25 lakh ceiling in force from 1 January 2024 was granted by Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare Office Memorandum No. 28/03/2024-P&PW(B)/Gratuity/9559 dated 30 May 2024, under the standing arrangement that the ceiling rises by 25% whenever dearness allowance crosses a further 50% of basic pay. The second proviso rounds a fraction of a rupee in the finally calculated gratuity up to the next higher rupee. The gratuity and death gratuity articles carry the computation.

Rule 45(2) extends the death-gratuity provision to death by suicide. Rule 45(3) provides the residuary gratuity: where a pensioner dies within five years of retirement and the total of the pension and gratuity actually received, together with the commuted value of any portion commuted, falls short of twelve times emoluments, the deficiency is paid to the family. Rules 46 to 49 then deal with nominations, the persons to whom a gratuity is payable, debarring a person charged with murdering the government servant until the criminal proceedings conclude, and the lapse of an unclaimed gratuity to the government where no family survives and no nomination subsists.

Family pension: Rules 50 and 51

Rule 50(2)(a)(i) of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 fixes the ordinary family pension at a uniform rate of 30% of pay, subject to a minimum of Rs. 9,000 and a maximum of Rs. 75,000 a month. Rule 50(2)(a)(ii) fixes the enhanced rate at 50% of pay, payable from the day following the death where the government servant dies in service, for a period of ten years. Rule 50(2)(a)(iii) pays the enhanced rate for seven years where the death is after retirement, or until the date the deceased would have attained the age of 67, whichever is less. Rule 50(2)(a)(iv) bounds the enhanced rate by the same Rs. 9,000 minimum and a maximum of Rs. 1,25,000 a month.

Entitlement under Rule 50(1) arises where the government servant dies after completing one year of continuous service, or before completing one year where he had been medically examined and declared fit for government service, or after retirement while in receipt of a pension or compassionate allowance. Rule 50(6) fixes the order of entitlement: the widow or widower, then children below 25 in order of birth, then a disabled son or daughter for life, then an unmarried, widowed or divorced daughter beyond 25, then dependent parents, and last dependent disabled siblings. Only one member draws it at a time, except where the rule provides for equal shares. The family pension article carries the full order, the income tests and the disability provisions, and dual family pension covers the cases where two are payable together.

Rule 51 covers the family of a government servant, pensioner or family pensioner who goes missing. Family pension is payable at the Rule 50(2) rate, on the eligibility conditions that apply on death during service, from the day following the date up to which leave salary or pension was paid, and Rule 51(8)(a) holds payment until six months have passed from the date the police report was lodged. The family pension where an employee goes missing section carries the Indemnity Bond in Format 8 and the police-report requirements. Chapter XI, Rules 71 to 78, carries the machinery for a case where a government servant dies or goes missing while in service, and Chapter XII, Rules 79 and 80, for a pensioner or family pensioner who dies or disappears.

Dearness relief: Rule 52

Rule 52 is Chapter IX of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 in its entirety, and it is the sole statutory basis of dearness relief on a central civil pension. Rule 52(1) allows relief against price rise to pensioners, including a person drawing a compassionate allowance under Rule 41, and to family pensioners, at such rates and subject to such conditions as the central government may specify from time to time. The rate is 60% of basic pension, moving in step with dearness allowance for serving employees.

Rule 52(2) is the restriction. A pensioner drawing a pension or compassionate allowance under these rules who is re-employed under the central government, a state government, a corporation, a company or a body is not paid dearness relief for the period of re-employment, because the re-employed pay carries its own dearness allowance. The bar operates on the whole period of re-employment, and a certificate of the fact of re-employment has to be furnished. Rule 52(4) exempts a family pensioner who is employed or re-employed from the bar outright, so an employed family pensioner keeps dearness relief. The pay fixation on re-employment article covers the pay side of the same case.

Rule 52 replaced Rule 55-A of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 1972, and every dearness relief order carries a paragraph directing that cases of re-employed pensioners and employed family pensioners be regulated under Rule 52.

Qualifying service: Rules 11 to 30

Chapter III of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 decides what service counts towards the ten years Rule 44 needs and the six-monthly periods the gratuity is built on. It is the longest chapter in the rulebook because each category of service needs its own rule.

Rule 11 fixes the commencement of qualifying service, and Rule 12 the conditions subject to which service qualifies. Rules 13 to 20 count service in state governments, in autonomous bodies, in temporary status as a casual labourer, on probation, as an apprentice, on contract, as pre-retirement civil service for a re-employed servant, and military service rendered before civil employment. Rule 17 excludes service as an apprentice, with an exception for a Subordinate Accounts Service apprentice in the Indian Audit and Accounts Department or the Defence Accounts Department, as the probation article notes.

Rules 21 to 23 count periods spent on leave, on training and under suspension. Extraordinary leave granted on a medical certificate counts as qualifying service under Rule 21; extraordinary leave for private affairs does not. Rules 24 to 28 handle forfeiture and interruption: service is forfeited on dismissal or removal under Rule 24 and on resignation under Rule 26, past service revives on reinstatement under Rule 25, and an interruption is condoned under Rule 28. Rule 28(2) expressly excludes an interruption caused by resignation from the automatic condonation in Rule 28(1), which is why a plain resignation cannot be repaired the way an ordinary break in service can, and why technical resignation exists as a separate route.

Rule 30 is the rule that prevents a dispute at the end of a career. It requires the qualifying service to be verified on the completion of eighteen years of service, and again five years before the date of retirement, so the length of service is settled while the records still exist. The qualifying service article works through what counts and what does not.

Emoluments and average emoluments: Rules 31 and 32

Rule 31 of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 defines emoluments as the basic pay the government servant drew immediately before retirement, that is the cell of the pay matrix the employee retires on, together with non-practising allowance where it applies. It excludes dearness allowance, house-rent allowance and every other allowance for the pension calculation. For the gratuity under Rule 45 the base is wider, because dearness allowance on the date of retirement is included.

Rule 32 defines average emoluments as the average of the emoluments drawn during the last ten months of service. Rule 44(1) then gives the pensioner whichever of the two produces the higher pension. For an employee who drew the same pay throughout the last ten months, which is the ordinary case, the two are identical and the choice makes no difference. The rule matters for an employee whose pay fell during the last ten months, for instance on reversion from a higher post or on a reduction imposed as a penalty, who would otherwise be pensioned on the lower figure.

Restrictions after retirement: Rules 7 to 10

Chapter II of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 attaches four conditions to a pension after it has been sanctioned, and Rule 8 is the one with teeth.

Rule 7 makes the pension and the family pension subject to future good conduct. Rule 8(1) reserves to the President the right to withhold or withdraw a pension or gratuity, or both, either in full or in part, permanently or for a specified period, and to order recovery from the pension or gratuity of the whole or part of any pecuniary loss caused to the government, where the pensioner is found guilty of grave misconduct or negligence during the period of service in a departmental or judicial proceeding. Rule 8(2)(b) provides that proceedings instituted under Rule 16 of the CCS (CCA) Rules, 1965 while the servant was in service, and continued after retirement, have no effect on pension and gratuity.

The CCS (Pension) Amendment Rules, 2022, notified as G.S.R. 770(E) on 7 October 2022, changed who exercises that power. The approval of the President, and consultation with the Union Public Service Commission, are now required only where the pensioner retired from a post for which the President is the appointing authority. In every other case the Secretary of the administrative ministry or department is competent to order the withholding or withdrawal, and the Comptroller and Auditor General of India is competent for a pensioner of the Indian Audit and Accounts Department. Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare Office Memorandum No. 38/41/19-P&PW(A)[6018] dated 10 April 2023 sets out the position, and the withholding of pension article carries the procedure.

Rule 9 deals with commercial employment after retirement, and it is a frequent source of confusion because Rule 9 of the repealed 1972 Rules was the withholding provision now at Rule 8. Rule 9(1) requires a pensioner who was a member of Central Service Group A immediately before retirement to obtain the previous sanction of the government, by an application in Form 1, before accepting any commercial employment within one year of the date of retirement. The post-retirement commercial employment article covers the sanction. Rule 10 requires similar permission for employment after retirement under a government outside India.

Rule 6 limits the number of pensions: a government servant cannot earn two pensions in the same service or post at the same time, or by the same continuous service, and a pensioner re-employed after retiring on a superannuation, retiring or compulsory retirement pension, or while drawing a compassionate allowance, is not entitled to a separate pension or gratuity for the period of re-employment.

From retirement to the Pension Payment Order: Rules 53 to 70

Chapter X of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 is the procedural half of the rulebook, eighteen rules that take a case from a name on a list to a credit in a bank account, and the 2021 Rules made those stages statutory rather than a matter of executive instruction.

Rule 53 puts the processing in the online pension sanctioning system, which is the Bhavishya portal that Rule 3 defines as the system for the sanction of retirement benefits and for tracking the sanction and payment of pension. Rule 54 requires the Head of Office to prepare a list of government servants due to retire, and Rule 55 requires intimation to the Directorate of Estates for the No Demand Certificate where government accommodation is involved. Rules 56 to 59 set the preparation, the stages on superannuation, the submission of forms where retirement is for another reason, and the completion of the case. Rule 60 forwards the case to the Accounts Officer, Rule 61 requires intimation of any later event bearing on the pension or on government dues, and Rule 63 is the authorisation of pension and gratuity by the Accounts Officer, which produces the Pension Payment Order.

Rules 67 to 69 govern recovery. Rule 67 covers government dues generally, Rule 68 dues pertaining to government accommodation, and Rule 69 dues other than accommodation, and Rule 3 defines government dues by reference to Rule 67(2). Rule 66 provides for the revision of pension after authorisation, which is the rule a pay-commission revision or a corrected pay fixation runs through. Rule 70 requires the date of retirement to be notified. The pension sanction process and timeline article follows the stages in order.

Provisional pension and interest on delay: Rules 62 and 65

Rule 62 of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 provides a provisional pension where the pension case is not complete by the date of retirement for reasons other than departmental or judicial proceedings, so that a retiree is not left without income while the paperwork is finished. Rule 75 provides the parallel provisional family pension and provisional gratuity on the death of a government servant. The anticipatory pension article covers what is paid and how it is adjusted against the final figure.

Rule 65 is the provision the 1972 Rules did not have in this form. Where a provisional pension, provisional family pension or provisional gratuity has not been sanctioned in accordance with the rules, or where the payment of a pension, family pension or gratuity is authorised later than the date it became due, including on a retirement otherwise than on superannuation, and the delay is clearly established as attributable to administrative lapse, interest is payable on the delayed amount and responsibility for the delay is to be fixed. Turning a departmental delay into a departmental liability is the practical change the re-enactment made, and the pension arrears article covers claiming it.

What changed from the 1972 Rules

The CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 changed the numbering, the timelines and the accountability for delay, and left the entitlements alone. The Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare reviewed the 1972 Rules after about fifty years and many amendments, folded the scattered executive instructions and Office Memorandum clarifications into the rule text, and gave them statutory status. The amount of the pension, the family pension and the gratuity did not change.

The renumbering is the change a reader meets first, and it breaks every older citation.

Beyond the numbering, three substantive changes carried through. The sanction stages became statutory rules rather than instructions, with the online system named in Rule 53 and the verification of qualifying service at eighteen years and five years before retirement mandated by Rule 30. Interest on delayed payment became a rule, at Rule 65, with responsibility for the delay to be fixed. And compensation pension disappeared as a separate class, leaving eight grants in Chapter V where the 1972 Rules had nine. That deletion pulled two other provisions with it: Rule 40(1) and the proviso to Rule 41(1) had measured the compulsory-retirement band and the compassionate-allowance ceiling against the compensation pension since notification No. Q-18011/2/75-E.V(A) dated 10 April 1975, and both now read superannuation pension instead.

Amendments and the Finance Act, 2025 validation

The CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 have been amended by the CCS (Pension) Amendment Rules, 2022, notified as G.S.R. 770(E) on 7 October 2022, which amended Rules 8, 20, 46, 50 and 76. The Rule 8 change moved the power to withhold or withdraw a pension from the President to the Secretary of the administrative ministry or department, except where the President is the appointing authority, and dispensed with Union Public Service Commission consultation in those cases.

Part IV of the Finance Act, 2025, passed by the Lok Sabha on 25 March 2025, validated the pension rules with retrospective effect from 1 June 1972, the date the 1972 Rules commenced. The validation covers the rules made under Article 309 for the CCS (Pension) Rules, 1972, the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 and the CCS (Extraordinary Pension) Rules, 2023, together with the instructions issued under them as amended from time to time. It also validates the principle that the central government may make a distinction among pensioners, and that such a distinction may come from an accepted Central Pay Commission recommendation and may in particular be made on the basis of the date of retirement.

The government’s stated position, given by the Finance Minister in Parliament, is that the provision alters no existing pension and is a reaffirmation rather than an amendment, and that it does not touch defence pensioners, who are covered by separate rules. Pensioners’ associations have taken the opposite view, that a validation reaching back to 1972 is aimed at date-of-retirement distinctions that courts had struck down, and the provision is under challenge in the Supreme Court. The position on the constitutional question is therefore unsettled and turns on that litigation, so the validation is stated here as enacted law without any prediction of the outcome.

The retirement package as a whole

The pension under Rule 44 is the recurring core of a larger set of benefits, and the 2021 Rules govern some of them while neighbouring rulebooks govern the rest. Alongside the monthly pension, a retiring Old Pension Scheme employee receives the retirement gratuity under Rule 45 as a lump sum, the commuted value of up to 40% of the pension as a further lump sum under Rule 5 of the CCS (Commutation of Pension) Rules, 1981, the cash equivalent of unused leave as leave encashment, and the accumulated General Provident Fund balance.

Two of those sit outside the 2021 Rules entirely. Commutation of pension is governed by the CCS (Commutation of Pension) Rules, 1981, including the commutation factor keyed on age next birthday and the restoration of the commuted portion after fifteen years, which the restoration of commuted pension article covers. Extraordinary pension for a disablement or death attributable to service is governed by the CCS (Extraordinary Pension) Rules, 2023. Dearness relief, by contrast, is inside the 2021 Rules, at Rule 52. The income tax for pensioners article covers how each element is taxed.

Related Articles

• Central government pension
• Old Pension Scheme
• National Pension System
• Unified Pension Scheme
• CCS (Implementation of NPS) Rules
• NPS exit rules
• Qualifying service
• Superannuation
• Retiring pension
• Voluntary retirement
• Premature retirement
• Compulsory retirement
• Compensation pension
• Compassionate allowance
• Invalid pension
• Disability and invalid pension
• Extraordinary pension
• Permanent absorption
• Central government pension calculation
• Service gratuity
• Retirement gratuity
• Death gratuity
• Residuary gratuity
• Family pension
• Dual family pension
• Additional pension in old age
• Dearness relief
• Pay fixation on re-employment
• Commutation of pension
• Restoration of commuted pension
• Revision of pension
• Pension arrears
• Withholding of pension
• Post-retirement commercial employment
• Anticipatory pension
• Pension sanction process and timeline
• PPO and the annual life certificate
• No Demand Certificate
• Resignation from government service
• Technical resignation
• Probation in central government
• Extraordinary leave
• Leave encashment
• General Provident Fund
• Income tax for pensioners
• CCS (CCA) Rules
• Fundamental Rules
• Union Public Service Commission
• Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare
• Pay matrix
• Dearness allowance
• House-rent allowance
• 7th Central Pay Commission
• Central government employees in India
• Rule 44 pension calculator
• Family pension calculator
• Gratuity calculator
• Commutation of pension calculator

External references

• Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare
• Pensioners’ Portal, pension rules
• CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021, full text
• Central Pension Accounting Office
• Department of Personnel and Training
• The Gazette of India

References

1. Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 2021, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare Notification No. 38/3/2017-P&PW(A), G.S.R. 868(E), Gazette of India Extraordinary Part II Section 3(i), 20 December 2021, in supersession of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 1972.
2. CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021, Rule 2 (application and exclusions, and Explanation (5) on employees covered by the CCS (Implementation of National Pension System) Rules, 2021), Rule 5 (regulation of claims), Rules 8 to 10 (withholding of pension, commercial employment, employment abroad).
3. CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021, Rule 33 (superannuation pension), Rule 34 (retiring pension), Rules 35 to 38 (absorption), Rule 39 (invalid pension), Rule 40 (compulsory retirement pension), Rule 41 (compassionate allowance), Rule 42 (retirement on thirty years’ qualifying service), Rule 43 (retirement on twenty years’ qualifying service).
4. CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021, Rule 44 (amount of pension, minimum Rs. 9,000 and maximum Rs. 1,25,000 a month; Rule 44(2) service gratuity; Rule 44(6) additional pension in old age), Rule 45 (retirement gratuity, death gratuity slabs, the twenty lakh rupee proviso and the residuary gratuity), Rules 46 to 49 (nominations, payment, debarring, lapse).
5. CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021, Rule 50 (family pension at 30% of pay, minimum Rs. 9,000 and maximum Rs. 75,000; enhanced rate at 50% for ten years on death in service and seven years or up to age 67 on death after retirement, maximum Rs. 1,25,000), Rule 51 (missing government servant, pensioner or family pensioner), Rule 52 (dearness relief on pension and family pension).
6. CCS (Pension) Amendment Rules, 2022, Notification G.S.R. 770(E) dated 7 October 2022, amending Rules 8, 20, 46, 50 and 76 of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021.
7. Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare Office Memorandum No. 38/41/19-P&PW(A)[6018] dated 10 April 2023, on the amendment of Rule 8 of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 by G.S.R. 770(E) dated 7 October 2022 and the authority competent to withhold or withdraw pension.
8. Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare Office Memorandum No. 28/03/2024-P&PW(B)/Gratuity/9559 dated 30 May 2024, raising the retirement gratuity and death gratuity ceiling to Rs. 25 lakh from 1 January 2024.
9. Finance Act, 2025, Part IV, validation of the Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules and the principles for expenditure on pension liabilities from the Consolidated Fund of India, with effect from 1 June 1972; passed by the Lok Sabha on 25 March 2025 (Press Information Bureau, Ministry of Finance, 25 March 2025).
10. CCS (Commutation of Pension) Rules, 1981 (commutation of pension) and the CCS (Extraordinary Pension) Rules, 2023 (disablement or death attributable to service), read with the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021.