Disability and invalid pension

Disability pension and invalid pension are the two civil benefits for a central government employee whose service ends on medical grounds, and they differ on one question: whether the government caused the harm. Invalid pension is an ordinary pension of 50% of emoluments granted under Rule 39 of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 when a medical board certifies permanent incapacity, whatever the cause. Disability pension is granted under the Central Civil Services (Extraordinary Pension) Rules, 2023, notified as G.S.R. 63(E) on 30 January 2023, when the disablement is attributable to or aggravated by government service, and it adds a disability element of 30% to 100% of emoluments on top of that same 50%.

Neither is the starting point. Section 20(4) of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 provides that no government establishment shall dispense with or reduce in rank an employee who acquires a disability during service, and both rule sets defer to it. Boarding out on a medical ground is therefore the exception, reached where the employee asks for it or where the establishment has been exempted by notification.

The scope here is civil. This article covers the central government civil pension under the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 and the CCS (Extraordinary Pension) Rules, 2023. It does not cover the defence disability pension, which is a separate regime under the Pension Regulations for the armed forces, administered by the defence pension authorities, with its own rates, its own broad-banding history and its own tax treatment. Defence figures do not read across to a civil case, and the tax section below is the point at which that distinction costs money.

What follows sets out the protection under section 20 before any pension question arises, the invalid pension and the ten-year waiver, the medical procedure and its statutory timelines, the four categories in the 2023 rules and the disability element each carries, broad-banding, worked examples, the retirement gratuity and how it differs by category, the lump sum paid to an employee retained in service, the constant attendant allowance, the extraordinary family pension and how it devolves, the appeal against a medical board, and the tax position under the Income-tax Act, 2025.

Protection under section 20 of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act

An employee who acquires a disability during service cannot be dispensed with or reduced in rank. Section 20(4) of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 (Act 49 of 2016) states that in terms, and it carries two provisos: an employee who after acquiring the disability is not suitable for the post held “shall be shifted to some other post with the same pay scale and service benefits”, and where no post can be found, the employee “may be kept on a supernumerary post until a suitable post is available or he attains the age of superannuation, whichever is earlier”. Section 20(3) separately bars denial of promotion merely on the ground of disability.

Rule 39(1) of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 opens by subordinating itself to that section: a case where section 20 applies “shall be governed by the provisions of the said section”, with a proviso that the employee produce a disability certificate under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Rules, 2017. Rule 2(2) of the CCS (Extraordinary Pension) Rules, 2023 does the same and adds the operative direction in clause (b): an employee who intends to retire and take the pension benefits “shall be advised” of the option to continue in service on the same pay scale and service benefits, and only if the request for retirement is not withdrawn may it be processed.

Two routes therefore lead to a pension rather than continued employment. The first is the employee’s own informed choice to retire, made after being advised of the section 20 option. The second is exemption: the proviso to section 20(1) lets the appropriate government exempt an establishment from the section by notification, having regard to the type of work carried on, and rule 2(2)(c) of the 2023 rules makes an employee of such an exempted establishment, boarded out on disablement, eligible for a disability pension. Even there the proviso to rule 2(2)(c) requires that an employee found fit for less laborious work be employed on a lower post if willing.

Invalid pension

An invalid pension is 50% of emoluments or average emoluments, whichever is more beneficial, subject to a minimum of Rs. 9,000 and a maximum of Rs. 1,25,000 a month, with dearness relief on top at the current rate of 60% from 1 January 2026. Rule 39 of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 governs the retirement, and Rule 44 the amount. The predecessor was Rule 38 of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 1972.

The trigger is a medical certification of permanent incapacity for the service, or for the particular post held. Rule 39(2) lets the employee apply to the Head of Department for retirement on invalid pension; a first proviso allows the spouse, failing whom a member of the family, to submit that application where the head of department is satisfied that the employee cannot do so on account of the infirmity. The cause is irrelevant to entitlement. An employee incapacitated by a road accident on a private holiday draws the same invalid pension as one incapacitated by a chronic illness.

The defining feature is the waiver of the ten-year minimum. Ordinarily a pension needs ten years of qualifying service. The proviso to Rule 44(1) makes an employee who retires under Rule 39 before completing ten years, but fulfils the conditions in Rule 39(9), eligible for an invalid pension at 50% of emoluments or average emoluments, whichever is more beneficial, and directs that “the condition of completion of minimum qualifying service of ten years shall not be applicable” in that case. Rule 39(9) sets two conditions: the employee must have been examined by the appropriate medical authority either before or after appointment and declared fit for government service, and must fulfil the other Rule 39 conditions for the grant.

Where those conditions fail, Rule 44(2) grants a service gratuity of half a month’s emoluments for each completed six-monthly period of qualifying service, paid as a lump sum. Rule 44(8) is worth checking before treating a case as short of the mark: an employee with nine years and nine months or more is deemed to have ten years of qualifying service. The retirement gratuity under Rule 45 is payable in addition in every case, subject to the ceiling of Rs. 25 lakh in force since 1 January 2024, as the gratuity article sets out. An employee under the National Pension System draws an invalid pension and family pension only where the option under Rule 10 of the CCS (Implementation of National Pension System) Rules, 2021 was exercised.

Medical examination, the certifying authority and the timelines

Rule 39(3) of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 fixes which authority examines the employee by rank and pay. A Medical Board examines a gazetted government servant, and a non-gazetted government servant whose pay as defined in Fundamental Rule 9(21) exceeds Rs. 54,000 a month. In every other case the examination is by a Civil Surgeon, a District Medical Officer or a Medical Officer of equivalent status. Rule 39(7) requires a lady doctor on the board where a woman is examined.

Three statutory timelines run once the application is in. The head of office or head of department must request the examination within fifteen days of receiving the application. The examination itself must be held not later than thirty days from the date that request reaches the medical authority. Where the certificate in Format 6 finds the employee unfit for further service, Rule 39(8) requires the invalid pension to be granted not later than forty-five days from the date the certificate is received.

Rule 39(6) places the gatekeeping on the employer, not the employee: “No medical certificate of incapacity for service may be granted unless the medical authority has received a request from the Head of his Office or Head of Department for medical examination of the Government servant.” An employee cannot obtain a certificate privately and present it as the basis for invalidation. Where the authority finds the employee fit for work of a less laborious character, Rule 39(10) requires employment on a lower post if the employee is willing, and admits the invalid pension only where no such post can be found.

The 2023 rules run their own timetable for a disability case. Rule 4(4) provides that no application need be submitted at all for a disability pension or family pension under those rules. Rule 4(5) puts the duty on the head of office to submit the case to the competent authority within three months of receiving the medical board’s report, and its proviso protects the claimant: the claim “shall not be rejected on account of any delay on the part of the Head of Office”.

The four categories in the 2023 rules

Rule 9(1) of the CCS (Extraordinary Pension) Rules, 2023 sorts every case of death or disability into four categories by the circumstances, and the category, not the degree of disability, is what moves the money.

Attributability is a finding, not a formula. Rule 4(2) treats a disablement as due to government service where a wound, injury or disease is attributable to it, or existed before or arose during it and has been aggravated by it. Schedule III carries an illustrative list of circumstances for Categories B, C and D, and rule 9(2)(ii) states that a case outside the list is decided on its own circumstances rather than shut out. Schedule IV holds the attributability guidelines, and Note 1 to rule 5(4) lets the sanctioning authority, for reasons recorded in writing, grant the benefit where a case is not strictly within them but is otherwise attributable. Note 2 covers a death where no medical report could be secured: the authority may still award family pension if satisfied of the causal connection.

The disability element by category

The disability pension is a service element plus a disability element, and rule 10(2)(i) of the CCS (Extraordinary Pension) Rules, 2023 fixes the service element in all three paying categories at the normal pension of 50% of emoluments or average emoluments, whichever is more beneficial. Rule 10(3) then sets the disability element for a 100% disablement at 30% of emoluments for Category B, 30% for Category C and 100% for Category D, reduced proportionately for a lower percentage of disability. Emoluments here are determined under Rule 31 and Rule 32 of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021, which means basic pay under Fundamental Rule 9(21)(a)(i), including stagnation increment and non-practising allowance.

Two provisions do a lot of work. Rule 10(2)(ii) removes any minimum qualifying service for either element, so the service element is payable even where the qualifying service is under ten years, and then closes the door on double recovery: “no service gratuity shall be admissible in such cases”. An employee with six years of service in a Category B case draws a monthly service element of 50% rather than the Rule 44(2) lump sum, and does not draw both. Rule 10(2)(iii) floors the whole disability pension at Rs. 18,000 a month, twice the Rs. 9,000 floor on an ordinary pension.

Rule 6(2) settles a question that arises on re-employment: the disability element granted under these rules is not taken into account in fixing the pay of a pensioner re-employed in government service. Rule 6(1) bars a double benefit for the same period of service, so a pension, family pension or gratuity under any other rules is not payable for a period for which the extraordinary benefit is running.

Broad-banding of the assessed disability

The medical board’s assessed percentage is not the percentage used. Rule 7(3) of the CCS (Extraordinary Pension) Rules, 2023 broad-bands it upward for the purpose of computing the disability element, on this table.

An employee assessed at 60% draws the element as though the disability were 75%, which is worth a quarter more every month for life. The percentage itself comes from rule 7(1) for a disease specified in Schedule I, certified by the medical board, and from rule 7(2) for an injury, which is read off the scale in Schedule II or, failing that, certified by the board. Schedule II fixes total loss of both hands, of one hand and one foot, of sight to the degree that the claimant cannot do work for which eyesight is essential, of a leg by double amputation, severe facial disfigurement and absolute deafness each at 100%, and steps down through the joints from there.

The proviso to rule 7(3) withholds broad-banding from an employee retained in service. That is not a drafting slip: an employee kept on the rolls receives a capitalised lump sum rather than a monthly element, and rule 10(5) works that sum on the raw assessed percentage.

Worked examples

Take an employee whose emoluments are Rs. 50,000 a month, boarded out on a disability assessed at 60%, and read the same facts under Category C and under Category D.

Both figures clear the Rs. 18,000 floor in rule 10(2)(iii), so it does not bite, and dearness relief is paid on top of each at the rate current for pensioners. The same disability, differently caused, is worth Rs. 26,250 a month more in Category D, which is Rs. 3.15 lakh a year before dearness relief.

The floor does bite lower down. An employee on emoluments of Rs. 20,000 in a Category B case with an assessed disability of 30%, broad-banded to 50%, computes to a service element of Rs. 10,000 plus a disability element of Rs. 3,000, being 50% of the 30% figure of Rs. 6,000, for a total of Rs. 13,000. Rule 10(2)(iii) lifts that to Rs. 18,000 a month.

Retirement gratuity on a disability discharge

The retirement gratuity is computed on different qualifying service depending on the category, and for a young employee the gap is larger than the pension difference. Rule 10(3)(i)(b) of the CCS (Extraordinary Pension) Rules, 2023 gives a Category B discharge the gratuity admissible under Rule 45 of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 “on the basis of the emoluments and qualifying service as on the date of discharge”, which is the ordinary position.

Rule 10(3)(ii)(b) and rule 10(3)(iii)(b) depart from it for Categories C and D. There the gratuity is worked on the emoluments on the date of discharge but “counting qualifying service up to the date on which he would have retired on superannuation in the normal course”. An employee aged 30 with eight years of service, discharged in Category D, is gratuitied on the thirty-eight years that would have run to age 60, not on the eight actually served. Under Rule 45 that reaches the maximum multiple of 33 times emoluments, and in practice the Rs. 25 lakh ceiling raised by Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare Office Memorandum No. 28/03/2024-P&PW(B)/Gratuity/9559 dated 30 May 2024 becomes the binding constraint rather than the length of service.

The death gratuity is the parallel payment where the employee dies rather than survives, and it runs under Rule 45(1)(b) of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 with the same Rs. 25 lakh ceiling.

Compensation where the employee is retained in service

An employee retained in service despite the disablement is paid a lump sum, not a monthly element. Rule 10(5)(a) of the CCS (Extraordinary Pension) Rules, 2023 directs payment of “compensation in lump sum in lieu of the disability element of disability pension by arriving at the capitalised value of such disability element with reference to the commutation table in force from time to time”, and rule 10(5)(b) excludes the service element from that computation. This is the route for an employee protected by section 20(4) of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 and kept on the rolls, and rule 2(2)(d) and the second proviso to rule 14(2) both point to it.

The rule carries its own illustration. An employee who has completed 40 years of age, drawing a basic pay of Rs. 30,000 a month on the date of injury, retained in service despite a 40% disability in Category B, receives Rs. 30,000 multiplied by 30/100 for the Category B disability element, multiplied by 40/100 for the percentage of disability, multiplied by the commutation factor of 9.075 for age 41 at next birthday, multiplied by 12 months, which is Rs. 3,92,040. The commutation of pension table supplies that factor.

Two details decide the amount. The percentage is the raw assessed figure, because the proviso to rule 7(3) withholds broad-banding here: at 40% assessed the multiplier is 40/100 and not the 50/100 a boarded-out employee would get. And the pay taken is the pay on the date of injury or the date of disease, under rule 3(1)(h)(ii), not the pay at any later date. Rule 10(6) requires the sanctioning authority to fix those dates, with the date of injury no later than the date of the medical board’s report, and the date of disease fixed with due regard to the board’s opinion and likewise no later than its report.

Constant attendant allowance

A disability pensioner assessed at 100% disability who cannot manage day to day activities draws Rs. 8,438 a month on top of the pension. Rule 10(7) of the CCS (Extraordinary Pension) Rules, 2023 grants the constant attendant allowance where the medical board, on the condition of the accepted disability, is of the opinion that the pensioner “is completely dependent on others for day to day activities and needs the services of a constant attendant”. It is payable for life, in addition to the monthly disability pension, and the rule expressly provides that no dearness relief is admissible on it.

The rate is not in the rules. Rule 10(7) leaves it to be “decided by the Government from time to time”, and the 7th Central Pay Commission rate of Rs. 6,750 a month from 1 July 2017 was set by Office Memorandum No. 1/4/2017-P&PW(F) dated 2 August 2017. Office Memorandum No. 1/4/2017-P&PW(E) dated 3 October 2017 provides that the rate rises by 25% every time dearness allowance on the revised pay rises by 50 percentage points. Dearness allowance reaching 50% from 1 January 2024 triggered the first step, and Office Memorandum No. 1/5/2024-P&PW(F)-9809 dated 18 September 2024 raised the rate to Rs. 8,438 a month with effect from that date. The next step falls due when dearness allowance reaches 100%; it stands at 60% from 1 January 2026.

Additional pension from eighty years of age

Rule 10(4) of the CCS (Extraordinary Pension) Rules, 2023 applies the additional quantum of pension under Rule 44(6) of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 to a disability pension granted under the 2023 rules. The additions are 20% of basic pension from 80 years to less than 85, 30% from 85 to less than 90, 40% from 90 to less than 95, 50% from 95 to less than 100, and 100% at 100 years or more, payable from the first day of the calendar month in which the age is attained. A disability pensioner is therefore not excluded from the age-based enhancement that reaches every other central government pensioner.

Extraordinary family pension

Where the death is attributable to or aggravated by service, the family draws 60% of pay under Category B and 100% of pay under Categories C and D. Rule 11(1) of the CCS (Extraordinary Pension) Rules, 2023 sets those rates and rule 11(4) floors the amount at Rs. 18,000 a month. Rule 11(3) determines pay in the same manner as for a family pension under Rule 50 of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021, and rule 3(1)(h) defines it as basic pay under Fundamental Rule 9(21)(a)(i) received immediately before death, including stagnation increment and non-practising allowance granted to a medical officer in lieu of private practice.

The comparison with the ordinary family pension is the point of the regime.

Dearness relief is paid on the extraordinary family pension at the current rate, as on any pension.

Devolution of the extraordinary family pension

The rate the widow draws is not the rate the children will draw after her. Rule 12(1) of the CCS (Extraordinary Pension) Rules, 2023 fixes the order of precedence as the widow or widower, then dependent children including adopted and step children, then parents including adoptive parents, then dependent siblings, and rule 12(2)(a) restricts payment to one member at a time except in the listed sharing cases. What changes at each step is the fraction.

Several conditions travel with those shares. A widow draws it until death or remarriage, and the explanation to rule 12(3)(a) provides that her eligibility is unaffected by income from any other source. Under rule 12(3)(b)(i) a widow who remarries a brother of the deceased and continues to support the other dependants keeps the pension, and under rule 12(3)(b)(ii) a childless widow keeps it on remarriage while her other income is below the minimum family pension under rule 11(4) plus dearness relief, with a yearly certificate to the pension disbursing authority required by rule 12(3)(k). A widow eligible under Category C or D who remarries drops, from the day after the remarriage, to the ordinary Rule 50 rate under rule 12(3)(b)(iii).

For children, rule 12(4)(a) sets the eligibility conditions: an unmarried son below 25 and not earning his livelihood, an unmarried, widowed or divorced daughter not earning her livelihood, and a son or daughter with a mental or physical disability not earning a livelihood, with no age limit in the third case. Rule 12(4)(b) treats a child as not earning where income from sources other than the family pension is below the minimum family pension plus dearness relief. Rule 12(4)(h) pays a disabled child for life after the last non-disabled child turns 25, subject to the disability having existed before the death of the employee or spouse, and rule 12(4)(i) provides that marriage does not make a disabled child ineligible. Rule 12(4)(j) carries the unmarried, widowed or divorced daughter beyond 25 for life or until she marries or starts earning.

Two further provisions matter to a two-earner household. Rule 12(7)(a) excludes a family pension already drawn on another employee’s death from the income test, and rule 12(7)(b) grants the surviving children two family pensions where both parents were government servants and both have died. The Note to rule 12 requires any claimant other than the widow, widower or parents to file the last income tax return or, failing that, an income certificate from a sub-divisional magistrate.

Death within seven years of being boarded out

A disability pensioner who dies within seven years of discharge, of the same injury or disease, leaves the family the extraordinary family pension rather than the ordinary one. Rule 11(2) of the CCS (Extraordinary Pension) Rules, 2023 ordinarily sends the family of a deceased disability pensioner to Rule 50 of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021, but its proviso carves out that case and gives the family the pension “in the same category under which the disability pension was granted” and “at the rate which would have been admissible if the Government servant had died during service due to the injury or disease which resulted in his disablement”. Explanation 2 to rule 12(1) brings such a family inside rule 12 by treating the deceased pensioner as a government servant.

The question is decided medically, not administratively. The Note to rule 11(2) requires whether the death was on account of the same injury or disease to be decided by a medical board constituted by the authority competent to grant family pension under rule 5. On a pay of Rs. 50,000 in Category D, the difference between the two routes is Rs. 50,000 a month against Rs. 15,000.

Appeal against the medical board’s finding

The medical board’s assessment is final unless appealed, and rule 8 of the CCS (Extraordinary Pension) Rules, 2023 sets a one-month clock at each end. The findings must be made known to the employee within one month of the head of office or department receiving the medical report, and the appeal must be filed with supporting evidence within one month of the findings being made known, to an authority immediately superior to the one that constituted the board. Where the head of office is satisfied that the employee cannot appeal on account of bodily or mental infirmity, rule 8(2)(ii) allows the spouse, failing whom the member of the family eligible for family pension, failing whom the gratuity nominee, to appeal instead.

Rule 8(2)(iii) disposes of a common failure. A medical certificate produced as evidence of an error of judgment “shall not be taken into consideration” unless it carries a note by the practitioner who gave it, recording that it was given in full knowledge that the person had already been examined by a medical board which gave an opinion on the injury or disease. An appeal carrying such a certificate goes to a Review Medical Board under rule 8(2)(iv); one without it goes first to the Directorate General of Health Services in the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare under rule 8(2)(v), which advises whether there was an error of judgment and by whom any re-examination is to be conducted. Rule 8(2)(vi) bars any member of the original board from the review board, and rule 8(2)(vii) makes the review board’s findings binding on all parties.

Rule 8(2)(viii) ends the matter permanently: the extent of disability so determined is final and the employee “shall not be required to appear before Medical Board periodically for the purpose of obtaining a certificate that the disability continues to persist”.

Sanction, procedure and delay

The power to sanction sits high. Rule 5(1) of the CCS (Extraordinary Pension) Rules, 2023 vests it in the Secretary of the ministry or department, or an officer not below the rank of Joint Secretary to the Government of India to whom the Secretary delegates it in consultation with the Financial Adviser. Rule 5(4) requires that authority to satisfy itself on the rule 4 conditions and to certify in terms that a causal connection exists and that the death or disability is attributable to or aggravated by government service.

Rule 13 routes the case through Bhavishya, the online sanction system, unless the department, office or person is exempted by a general or special order. Rule 14 runs the disability pension case: the employee submits Form E-1 with the ordinary pension forms, the head of office completes Part I of Form E-2 with the check list and pension calculation sheet and forwards the case to the Accounts Officer within two months of receiving the forms, and rule 14(8)(a) requires the Accounts Officer to assess the amounts and issue the Pension Payment Order not later than one month after receiving the case. Rule 15 runs the family pension case on Forms E-5 and E-6, with two months for the Accounts Officer. Where a final decision is pending, rule 14(9) and rule 15(8) require provisional pension and provisional gratuity under Rule 62 and Rule 75 of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021, adjusted against the final amounts.

Delay has a price. Rule 16(2) provides that where provisional pension was not sanctioned, or payment was authorised later than it fell due, and the delay is clearly established to be attributable to administrative reasons or lapses, interest is paid on the arrears under Rule 65 of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 and responsibility is fixed for the delay. Rule 16(3) requires a report of every such case to reach the Secretary of the administrative ministry by 15 January each year. Rule 17 carries a power to relax any rule causing undue hardship, for reasons recorded in writing, with the concurrence of the Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare.

Rule 18 repealed the Central Civil Services (Extraordinary Pension) Rules, 1939 and every regulation and Office Memorandum in force on the same matters. Rule 18(2)(b) and rule 18(2)(c) preserve the old rules for a disability pension case pending at commencement in respect of an employee who had retired before it, and for a death gratuity and family pension case pending at commencement.

Tax treatment

A civil disability pension, invalid pension, constant attendant allowance and extraordinary family pension are all taxable. The Income-tax Act, 2025 (Act No. 30 of 2025), which has governed from 1 April 2026, contains no exemption for a disability pension anywhere in its text, and no provision of it reaches a civil employee disabled or killed by service. The pensions are chargeable under the head salaries by force of Section 15, in the ordinary way, as the income tax for pensioners article sets out.

Schedule III is where the exemptions live, and its two pension entries stop short of the civil case. Serial number 16 exempts a family pension received by the widow, children or nominated heirs of a member of the armed forces, including the paramilitary forces, of the Union, where the death occurred in the course of operational duties in such circumstances and subject to such conditions as may be prescribed. Serials 14 and 15 exempt the pension of a gallantry award holder notified by the Central Government, and the family pension of a member of that person’s family. A central government civil employee killed by a terrorist attack in Category D falls in none of the three, so the family draws the 100% extraordinary family pension and pays tax on it, with the deduction of one-third or Rs. 25,000 under Section 93(1)(d)(i) in the regime under Section 202 and one-third or Rs. 15,000 under Section 93(1)(d)(ii) otherwise.

The armed forces exemption that readers have in mind was never statutory. Both the service element and the disability element of an armed forces disability pension are exempt under Central Board of Direct Taxes Instruction No. 136 dated 14 January 1970 and Instruction No. 2/2001 dated 2 July 2001, administrative instructions framed for military service and never enacted into any Income-tax Act. Circular No. 13/2019 dated 24 June 2019 sought to confine even that exemption to armed forces personnel actually invalided out on a disability attributable to or aggravated by service, and to withhold it from those who retired on superannuation or otherwise; that dispute is internal to the defence regime and changes nothing on the civil side.

Two payments in a disability case are not taxed, and they are the lump sums rather than the pension. The retirement gratuity of a government employee is deductible in full at serial number 3 of the Table in Section 19(1) of the Income-tax Act, 2025, and the same treatment covers the death gratuity. The commuted portion of a pension is deductible at serial number 7 of that Table for a government employee, so an employee who commutes part of the service element under the commutation rules is not taxed on the capitalised sum, though the leave encashment on a medical exit takes its own treatment at serial number 13.

Related Articles

• Central government pension
• Invalid pension
• Extraordinary pension
• Constant attendant allowance
• Family pension
• Family pension calculation
• Qualifying service
• Superannuation
• CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021
• CCS (Extraordinary Pension) Rules
• Gratuity for central government employees
• Death gratuity
• Commutation of pension
• Restoration of commuted pension
• Dearness relief
• Dearness allowance
• PPO and the annual life certificate
• Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare
• Premature retirement
• Voluntary retirement
• Compulsory retirement
• Old Pension Scheme
• National Pension System
• Unified Pension Scheme
• General Provident Fund
• Leave encashment
• Income tax for pensioners
• Central government pension calculation
• 7th Central Pay Commission
• Central government employees in India
• Family pension calculator
• Rule 44 pension calculator
• Gratuity calculator
• Commutation of pension calculator

External references

• Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare
• The Gazette of India
• Central Pension Accounting Office
• Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities
• India Code, the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016
• Pensioners’ Portal

References

1. Central Civil Services (Extraordinary Pension) Rules, 2023, notified as G.S.R. 63(E) on 30 January 2023: rule 2(2) (the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act interface), rule 3(1)(h) (pay), rule 4 (conditions and the three-month duty on the head of office), rule 5 (sanctioning authority and Schedule IV), rule 6 (no double benefit; disability element excluded from re-employment pay), rule 7 (percentage of disability and the broad-banding table), rule 8 (medical board findings and appeal), rule 9 (Categories A to D and Schedule III), rule 10 (service element, disability element by category, the Rs. 18,000 floor, the retirement gratuity, the additional pension at 80, the lump sum under sub-rule (5) and the constant attendant allowance under sub-rule (7)), rule 11 (extraordinary family pension and the seven-year proviso), rule 12 (eligibility and shares of family members), rules 13 to 16 (Bhavishya, procedure, timelines and interest), rule 17 (power to relax) and rule 18 (repeal of the 1939 rules and savings).
2. Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 2021, notified as G.S.R. 868(E) on 20 December 2021: Rule 31 and Rule 32 (emoluments and average emoluments), Rule 39 (invalid pension, the medical authority in sub-rule (3), the Rs. 54,000 threshold, the employer request in sub-rule (6) and the conditions in sub-rule (9)), Rule 44 (amount of pension, the proviso to sub-rule (1), the service gratuity in sub-rule (2), the additional pension in sub-rule (6) and the nine years nine months rule in sub-rule (8)), Rule 45 (retirement and death gratuity), Rule 50 (ordinary family pension), Rule 62 and Rule 75 (provisional payments) and Rule 65 (interest on delayed payment).
3. Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 (Act 49 of 2016), section 20: sub-section (1) and its exemption proviso, sub-section (3) on promotion, and sub-section (4) barring dispensing with or reducing in rank an employee who acquires a disability, with its shifting and supernumerary-post provisos.
4. Central Civil Services (Implementation of National Pension System) Rules, 2021, Rule 10 (the option under which family pension, disability pension and constant attendant allowance extend to an employee covered by the National Pension System).
5. Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare Office Memorandum No. 1/4/2017-P&PW(F) dated 2 August 2017 (constant attendant allowance of Rs. 6,750 a month with effect from 1 July 2017), Office Memorandum No. 1/4/2017-P&PW(E) dated 3 October 2017 (the 25% escalation at each 50 percentage points of dearness allowance) and Office Memorandum No. 1/5/2024-P&PW(F)-9809 dated 18 September 2024 (Rs. 8,438 a month with effect from 1 January 2024).
6. Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare Office Memorandum No. 28/03/2024-P&PW(B)/Gratuity/9559 dated 30 May 2024 (retirement and death gratuity ceiling raised to Rs. 25 lakh with effect from 1 January 2024).
7. Income-tax Act, 2025 (Act No. 30 of 2025): Section 15 (salaries), the Table in Section 19(1) at serial numbers 3, 7 and 13 (gratuity, commuted pension and leave encashment), Section 93(1)(d) (the family pension deduction), Section 202 (the regime rate table) and Schedule III at serial numbers 14, 15 and 16 (gallantry award pension, the family pension of such an awardee’s family, and the armed forces operational-death family pension).
8. Central Board of Direct Taxes Instruction No. 136 dated 14 January 1970, Instruction No. 2/2001 dated 2 July 2001 and Circular No. 13/2019 dated 24 June 2019 (exemption of the disability pension of armed forces personnel), cited for the contrast with the civil position only.