Revision of pension

Revision of pension is the re-fixing of an existing central government pensioner’s basic pension when a new Central Pay Commission takes effect, carried out under the power in Rule 66(1) of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021, so that a person who retired years or decades earlier is not left frozen on the pay structure of their own retirement year. A pension is revised once per pay commission. Between revisions only the dearness relief on it changes.

The most recent revision ran under the 7th Central Pay Commission, through two formulations. Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare Office Memorandum No. 38/37/2016-P&PW(A)(ii) dated 4 August 2016 multiplied the pre-revised basic pension as on 31 December 2015 by the fitment factor of 2.57. Office Memorandum No. 38/37/2016-P&PW(A) dated 12 May 2017 fixed a notional pay in the pay matrix and took 50% of it. Paragraph 5 of the second order grants the pensioner whichever figure is higher, with effect from 1 January 2016.

The principle behind revision is parity across generations of retirees. A person who retired in 1996 on the 5th Central Pay Commission scales should not draw a pension far behind a person retiring today from the same post, and the revision mechanism holds a past retiree’s pension in a defined relationship to the pay the office now carries. What the revision has never delivered is full parity. It delivers modified parity, a guaranteed proportion rather than an exact match, and the eight years of litigation over paragraph 4.2 of the 6th Central Pay Commission revision order are a record of how hard that guarantee was to pin down.

What revision of pension means

Three separate mechanisms raise what a pensioner receives, and conflating them is the commonest error in this area. The first is the original fixation at retirement, 50% of emoluments or of average emoluments, whichever is more beneficial, under Rule 44(1) of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021, computed once. The second is dearness relief under Rule 52 of those Rules, a percentage added on top of the basic pension and revised twice a year. The third is revision of pension, the re-fixing of the basic pension itself when a pay commission changes the underlying pay structure, which happens roughly once a decade.

Rule 66(1) of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 is the enabling power. It allows a pension already authorised under Rule 44, or a family pension under Rule 50, to be revised in implementation of a decision on the recommendations of a Central Pay Commission, or otherwise. Without that rule a pension payment order once issued would be final, and every pensioner would remain on the figure fixed in their retirement year.

Revision matters disproportionately because it works on the base to which everything else is applied. Dearness relief is a percentage of the basic pension, and the additional pension for age under Rule 44(6) is a percentage of the basic pension, so raising the basic figure raises both in rupee terms. A revision lifts the whole structure of what the pensioner draws rather than one line of it. It is also the bridge across pay-structure changes: the move from the 6th Central Pay Commission’s pay bands and grade pay to the 7th Central Pay Commission’s single pay matrix was carried, for existing pensioners, entirely by this exercise.

The two formulations under the 7th Central Pay Commission

A pensioner who retired before 1 January 2016 was revised under whichever of two formulations produced the higher figure, and paragraph 5 of the Office Memorandum dated 12 May 2017 states that choice in terms. The design is deliberate: no pensioner could be worse off for the second formulation existing.

The first formulation is a multiplication. Office Memorandum No. 38/37/2016-P&PW(A)(ii) dated 4 August 2016 multiplies the pre-revised basic pension, as it stood on 31 December 2015, by 2.57. It needs nothing beyond the pension figure already on the Pension Payment Order, which is why it could be applied to every pensioner at once while the second formulation was still being worked out.

The second formulation is notional pay fixation, under paragraph 4 of the Office Memorandum dated 12 May 2017. The pay drawn at retirement is fixed notionally under each intervening Pay Commission in turn, arriving at a cell of the 7th CPC pay matrix, and pension is taken at 50% and family pension at 30% of that notional pay. The 7th Central Pay Commission had recommended, at paragraphs 10.1.67 and 10.1.68 of its report, a simpler first formulation based on counting the increments earned in the level from which the pensioner retired. The Cabinet decision of 3 May 2017 recorded that formulation as not feasible to implement, because the service records needed to count increments no longer existed for the older cases, and the stepped notional reconstruction was adopted in its place.

Where the notional reconstruction starts

The notional route does not run the same number of steps for every pensioner, and paragraph 7 of the Office Memorandum dated 12 May 2017 sets two different starting points by date of retirement. Stating the method as a fixed two-step reconstruction from the 5th to the 6th and the 6th to the 7th Central Pay Commission is wrong for every retiree before 1 January 1996.

For a government servant who retired or died on or after 1 January 1986, the starting point is the actual pay and pay scale held at retirement. A person who retired in 1990 on the 4th Central Pay Commission scales is therefore stepped forward four times, through the 5th, the 6th, and the 7th Central Pay Commission fixation formulas in turn.

For a government servant who retired or died before 1 January 1986, the records are older than the method can reach, so paragraph 7 substitutes a figure already computed for another purpose. The notional pay as on 1 January 1986 worked out under Office Memorandum No. 45/86/97-P&PW(A) dated 10 February 1998 is treated as the pay scale and pay as on that date, and the reconstruction runs forward from there. The 1998 exercise was itself a pension revision, which is why its output is available to be reused.

The reason the notional route restores fuller parity than the multiplication route is that it tracks the pay of the post through every structural change rather than applying one flat multiple to an old pension figure. Two pensioners who retired from the same level with the same qualifying service arrive at the same revised pension by this method, whereas the multiplication route preserves whatever differences were frozen into the older structures. The route is also distinct from how a serving employee was fixed: a serving employee was fixed in one step under Rule 7 of the CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016, by multiplying live pay by 2.57 and placing the product in the matrix, so notional pay fixation for a pensioner is its own exercise, with its own index of rationalisation effects.

The concordance tables

The concordance tables are what made the notional route administrable at the scale of millions of pensioners. Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare Office Memorandum No. 38/37/2016-P&PW(A) dated 6 July 2017, issued with the concurrence of the Department of Expenditure at Diary No. 1(13)/EV/2017 dated 5 July 2017, enclosed Concordance Tables Nos. 1 to 58, mapping a pre-2016 pay and pension to the corresponding notional pay and revised pension in the 7th CPC matrix.

A pensioner, a Head of Office fixing the notional pay, or a disbursing bank looks up the pre-revised pay in the relevant table and reads off the notional pay and the revised pension. The multi-commission reconstruction does not have to be worked afresh in each case. The tables have been corrected twice: Tables 51 and 52 were substituted by corrigendum dated 13 September 2017, and Table 29 by corrigendum dated 18 June 2020.

A table does not override the rules. Paragraph 4 of the Office Memorandum dated 6 July 2017 provides that where a table and the fixation rules diverge, the fixation rules prevail, so a table is a computational aid and not an independent source of entitlement. The tables also work as a check in the pensioner’s favour: anyone who suspects their revised pension is short can trace the pre-revised figure through the relevant table and see the figure the rules produce. The full structure of the tables is set out in the concordance table article.

Minimum, maximum, and dearness relief after revision

The revised pension is bounded at both ends by paragraph 8 of the Office Memorandum dated 12 May 2017. The minimum is Rs. 9,000 a month from 1 January 2016, and that floor is reckoned excluding the additional pension payable for age, so an eighty-year-old is not treated as already at the floor by virtue of the age addition. A revised pension computing below Rs. 9,000 is raised to it.

The ceilings are expressed as proportions of the highest pay in government. Pension is capped at 50% and family pension at 30% of the highest pay of Rs. 2,50,000, which is Rs. 1,25,000 and Rs. 75,000 a month respectively. These are the same floor and ceiling that apply to a pension fixed at retirement today under Rule 44(1) and Rule 50(2)(a) of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021, so a revised pension and a freshly fixed pension sit on one scale. The minimum and maximum pension article sets both out in full.

Dearness relief is then paid on top of the revised basic pension at the rate in force, 60% with effect from 1 January 2026, and continues to be revised twice a year independently of any pension revision. Revision re-fixes the basic pension once per pay commission; dearness relief adjusts twice a year on whatever the basic pension then is. The two are separate instruments on separate cycles, and they meet only in that a revised basic pension raises the rupee value of the relief computed on it.

Pensioners left out of the 7th CPC revision

The Office Memorandum dated 12 May 2017 does not reach every pensioner, and four of its paragraphs mark the boundaries. A reader checking whether a particular pension was revised should start here rather than with the concordance tables.

Paragraph 11 excludes two classes drawing something other than an ordinary pension: a pension granted under Rule 40 of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 on compulsory retirement as a penalty, and a compassionate allowance granted under Rule 41 where a servant is dismissed or removed. Paragraph 12 deals separately with those permanently absorbed in a public sector undertaking or an autonomous body, whose entitlement turns on the terms of the absorption rather than on the ordinary revision.

Paragraph 19 confines the order to central civil pensioners. Armed forces pensioners are revised through their own instruments, and the Ministry of Defence issued the parallel notional-fixation order by letter No. 17(01)/2017(02)/D(Pension/Policy) dated 5 September 2017, with the armed forces concordance tables following by letter of even number dated 17 October 2018. The railways applied the civil tables mutatis mutandis by Railway Board letter No. 2016/F(E)III/1(1)/7 dated 11 July 2017. Paragraph 20 excludes judges and certain other constitutional authorities, whose pensions are paid under their own statutes and revised by amendment to those statutes.

Family pension and the additional pension for age

A revision carries the family pension with it, but the two formulations treat it differently, and the difference is often lost. Under the multiplication formulation the pre-revised family pension is itself multiplied by 2.57; no percentage is applied to any pay figure. Under the notional formulation paragraph 4 of the Office Memorandum dated 12 May 2017 takes family pension at 30% of the notional pay on 1 January 2016, which is a percentage of the notional pay and not of the pensioner’s own revised pension.

Both are subject to the paragraph 8 limits, the floor of Rs. 9,000 and the ceiling of Rs. 75,000 at the ordinary rate. The enhanced family pension at 50% is capped at Rs. 1,25,000 under Rule 50(2)(a)(iv) of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021. A family already drawing a family pension on a pre-2016 basis is revised through the same concordance tables as a pensioner, so the family is not left behind on the old figure.

The additional pension for age rides on the revised figure. Rule 44(6) of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 grants 20% of basic pension from the age of 80, rising to 30%, 40%, 50%, and 100% at 85, 90, 95, and 100 years, and paragraph 15 of the Office Memorandum dated 12 May 2017 applies it to the revised pension. An additional pension in old age therefore rises automatically when the base is revised, without any separate application.

Effect on a commuted pension

A revision does not reopen a commutation already made, and the amount already commuted continues to be deducted from the revised pension. What the revision creates is a fresh entitlement on the increase. Rule 10 of the CCS (Commutation of Pension) Rules, 1981 allows a pensioner whose pension is revised retrospectively to commute a fraction of the increase, and where the original commutation required no medical examination the additional commutation requires none either.

The consequence reaches the restoration date, and it catches pensioners out. Under the proviso to Rule 10-A of those Rules, where a commuted value has been paid on more than one occasion because of an upward revision, each commuted amount is restored on completion of 15 years from its own date of reduction. A pensioner who commuted at retirement and again on the 7th CPC arrears therefore holds two restoration dates years apart. The commutation of pension and restoration of commuted pension articles work both through, and the commutation factor table that fixes the lump sum has not changed since 2 September 2008 and does not move when a pay commission revises pay.

The 6th Central Pay Commission revision of pre-2006 pensioners

Each commission has revised the pensions of earlier retirees, and the 6th Central Pay Commission did it by consolidation rather than by reconstruction. Paragraph 4.1 of Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare Office Memorandum No. 38/37/08-P&PW(A) dated 1 September 2008 consolidated a pre-2006 pension with effect from 1 January 2006 by adding four components: the existing pension or family pension, the dearness pay element where applicable, dearness relief at 24% of basic pension plus dearness pension, and a fitment weightage of 40% of the existing pension.

Paragraph 4.2 then set a floor, and that floor is what gave the exercise its parity content. The revised pension was in no case to be lower than 50% of the sum of the minimum of pay in the pay band and the grade pay corresponding to the pre-revised pay scale from which the pensioner had retired. Two qualifications travelled with it. The figure was reduced pro rata where the pensioner had less than the full qualifying service then required for a full pension, 33 years, and in no case was it to fall below Rs. 3,500 a month, the 6th CPC minimum pension.

The structure of the two paragraphs is what a reader needs to hold. Paragraph 4.1 produced an arithmetic consolidation of what the pensioner was already drawing; paragraph 4.2 produced a parity floor derived from the post. The pensioner received whichever was higher. The difference between the 6th and the 7th CPC exercises is that the 7th replaced the flat consolidation with a reconstruction of the pay of the post through every commission, which moves closer to full parity without reaching it.

Modified parity and the litigation over paragraph 4.2

Modified parity guarantees a past retiree a defined proportion of what the post now carries, rather than the exact pension a fresh retiree from that post draws. The distinction sounds academic and was worth thousands of rupees a month, which is why paragraph 4.2 took eight years and four forums to settle.

The narrowing came first. A clarificatory Office Memorandum of even number dated 3 October 2008 read paragraph 4.2 to mean 50% of the minimum of the pay in the pay band, irrespective of the pre-revised scale of pay, plus the grade pay corresponding to the pre-revised scale. Because a single pay band spanned several pre-revised scales, that reading pulled every pensioner in a band down to the bottom of it and stripped the floor of its connection to the post the pensioner had actually held.

The correction came through the courts. The Central Administrative Tribunal, Principal Bench, New Delhi, by common order dated 1 November 2011 in OA No. 655/2010 and three connected applications, directed re-fixation of all pre-2006 retirees with effect from 1 January 2006 on the basis of the Resolution dated 29 August 2008. The Delhi High Court dismissed the Government’s challenge by order dated 29 April 2013 in WP(C) No. 1535/2012, and the Supreme Court dismissed the special leave petition by order dated 17 March 2015 in SLP(C) No. 36148/2013.

The Government conceded in stages. Office Memorandum dated 28 January 2013 accepted the higher reading, stepping pension up to 50% and family pension to 30% of the sum of the minimum of pay in the pay band and the grade pay, as shown in the Department of Expenditure fitment tables in Office Memorandum No. 1/1/2008-IC dated 30 August 2008, but paragraph 9 granted it only from 24 September 2012 and expressly denied arrears for 1 January 2006 to 23 September 2012. Office Memorandum dated 30 July 2015 moved the same benefit back to 1 January 2006. Office Memorandum No. 38/37/08-P&PW(A) dated 6 April 2016, following the order of the Central Administrative Tribunal, Ernakulam Bench dated 16 August 2013 in OA No. 715/2012, deleted paragraph 5 of the 2013 order and delinked the paragraph 4.2 floor from 33 years of qualifying service, with arrears from 1 January 2006. A parallel chain extended modified parity to pre-2006 disability pensioners under the CCS (Extraordinary Pension) Rules by Office Memorandum of even number dated 30 September 2010.

The sequence is the reason a date attached to modified parity has to be read carefully. The benefit was granted in 2013 from 2012, extended in 2015 to 2006, and completed in 2016. An article or an order citing any one of those dates as the moment modified parity arrived is citing one step of four.

How a revised authority is issued and paid

Revision of an existing pension does not run through the system that sanctions a new one, and the distinction is worth stating plainly because the two are routinely confused. Rule 53 of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 requires the pension case of a government servant, meaning a serving employee approaching retirement, to be processed through Bhavishya, which describes itself as a pension sanction and payment tracking system. Bhavishya is the route to a first Pension Payment Order, not the route by which someone who retired in 1994 gets re-fixed.

Responsibility for a revision sits with the office the pensioner retired from. Paragraph 18 of the Office Memorandum dated 12 May 2017 places it on the Head of Department and the attached Pay and Accounts Office, which issue a revised pension payment authority. That authority issues under the existing Pension Payment Order number and travels to the pension disbursing authority through the same channel the original order travelled, so the pensioner keeps the same PPO with a revised entitlement rather than receiving a new one.

The Central Pension Accounting Office routes rather than authorises. Under Rule 60(4) of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 the Accounts Officer issues the Pension Payment Order or the Revised Pension Payment Authority, and the Central Pension Accounting Office then issues its Special Seal of Authority and forwards that authority, with a copy of the order and the prescribed undertaking, to the pension disbursing authority within twenty one days. The bank credits the revised figure and the arrears on the strength of the sealed authority. Where a pensioner believes a revision is wrong or delayed, CPENGRAMS, the Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare grievance system, routes the complaint to whichever office is responsible for the stage at which the problem arose. The pension sanction process timeline article sets out the same machinery for a fresh case.

Pension arrears on a revision

A revision generates arrears because the revised pension takes effect from a date earlier than the date the revised authority is issued. For the 7th CPC revision the effective date is 1 January 2016, and paragraph 17 of the Office Memorandum dated 12 May 2017 provides that no arrears are payable for any period before it. The pension arrears are the difference between the revised pension and the pension actually drawn for the months in between, paid as a lump sum by the disbursing bank once the revised authority reaches it.

Arrears matter for income tax because they arrive in one year and relate to several. Section 157 of the Income-tax Act, 2025, the successor to Section 89 of the repealed Income-tax Act, 1961, spreads arrears notionally over the years to which they relate so the bunching does not push the pensioner into a higher slab. The relief is claimed on Form No. 39 under rule 73 of the Income-tax Rules, 2026, which replaced Form 10E under Rule 21AA; salary and family pension are entry 1 of the rule 73 Table. The income tax for pensioners article works the computation through.

Wrong fixation, Rule 66, and the limits on a belated claim

A revision can be fixed wrongly, most often through a mis-stated level, a wrong count of qualifying service, or the use of the wrong concordance table. What the rules provide against that is narrower than pensioners generally assume, and it runs mostly in the Government’s direction rather than the pensioner’s.

Rule 66(2) of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 is a protection, not a remedy. It provides that a pension once authorised or revised shall not be revised to the disadvantage of the government servant unless a clerical error is detected, and the proviso bars even that downward revision where the clerical error is detected more than two years after the authorisation or revision. Rule 66(3) leaves it to the administrative Ministry to decide whether an error is clerical at all, and Rule 66(4) to (6) govern waiver and recovery of an amount already overpaid. Nothing in Rule 66 creates a right in the pensioner to demand re-fixation, and nothing in it says a correction carries arrears to the original effective date.

The practical route is the office that issued the authority. Paragraph 18 of the Office Memorandum dated 12 May 2017 fixes responsibility on the Head of Department and the Pay and Accounts Office, so a pensioner who traces their pre-revised pay through the relevant concordance table and finds the revised figure short takes it there, and to CPENGRAMS if it is not corrected.

Delay costs money even though it does not extinguish the claim. An under-fixed pension is a continuing wrong, which is why the claim itself does not become time barred, and the Supreme Court applied that principle in Union of India v. Tarsem Singh, decided on 13 August 2008, drawing on M.R. Gupta v. Union of India, (1995) 5 SCC 628. What the Court restricted was the arrears: relief on a belated claim is ordinarily confined to arrears for about three years before the date of the writ petition, with the fixation corrected for the rest of the period notionally. A pensioner who waits a decade to raise an error therefore secures the corrected figure going forward and about three years of money, not ten. Raising it at once is worth the difference.

One Rank One Pension as a separate revision cycle

Defence pensioners are revised on two cycles rather than one. One Rank One Pension, implemented by Ministry of Defence letter No. 12(1)/2014/D(Pen/Pol)-Part-II dated 7 November 2015 with effect from 1 July 2014, brings a defence pensioner’s pension up to the level of a recent retiree of the same rank and qualifying service at defined intervals, independently of any pay commission. The revision from 1 July 2019 followed by letter No. 1(1)/2019/D(Pen/Pol) dated 4 January 2023.

Central civil pensioners have no equivalent. Their parity is the modified parity delivered by the pay-commission revision and the notional pay method, which measures the old pension against the pay structure of the post rather than against the pension of a named recent retiree. That is the substantive difference between the two systems: OROP equalises against a person, a pay-commission revision equalises against a scale, and only the first of those closes the gap completely.

Worked examples

The examples below apply the two formulations of the Office Memorandum dated 12 May 2017 to figures that a pre-2016 pensioner could actually have held, with dearness relief at the rate in force from 1 January 2026, 60%.

A pensioner at the 6th CPC minimum. A pensioner drawing the 6th CPC minimum pension of Rs. 3,500 a month as on 31 December 2015 is revised, on the multiplication formulation, to 2.57 times Rs. 3,500, which is Rs. 8,995. That falls Rs. 5 below the paragraph 8 floor, so the revised pension is raised to Rs. 9,000. With dearness relief of Rs. 5,400 the pensioner draws Rs. 14,400 a month. The case shows how close the 2.57 multiple runs to the new floor at the bottom of the scale: the floor, not the fitment factor, is what fixes the pension of the lowest-paid retirees.

A pensioner in the middle of the scale. A pensioner drawing a pre-revised basic pension of Rs. 15,000 as on 31 December 2015 is revised to 2.57 times Rs. 15,000, which is Rs. 38,550, on the multiplication formulation. If the concordance table for their pre-revised scale yields a notional pay of Rs. 80,000 in the matrix, the notional formulation gives 50% of that, Rs. 40,000. Paragraph 5 grants the higher figure of Rs. 40,000, and with dearness relief of Rs. 24,000 the pensioner draws Rs. 64,000 a month. The Rs. 1,450 a month by which the notional route beats the multiplication is the whole practical point of the second formulation.

A pensioner at the 6th CPC maximum. A pensioner drawing the 6th CPC maximum pension of Rs. 45,000 a month is revised, on the multiplication formulation, to 2.57 times Rs. 45,000, which is Rs. 1,15,650. That sits below the paragraph 8 ceiling of Rs. 1,25,000, so the ceiling does not bite and the figure stands. With dearness relief of Rs. 69,390 the pensioner draws Rs. 1,85,040 a month. The ceiling constrains a notional fixation at the apex of the matrix, not the ordinary operation of the 2.57 multiple.

A family pension at the floor. A family drawing the 6th CPC minimum family pension of Rs. 3,500 a month is revised on the same two formulations. The multiplication gives 2.57 times Rs. 3,500, or Rs. 8,995. The notional formulation gives 30% of the notional pay, which for a notional pay of Rs. 18,000 is Rs. 5,400. Both fall below the Rs. 9,000 floor, which applies to a family pension as it does to a pension, so the family pension is fixed at Rs. 9,000 and draws Rs. 14,400 with dearness relief.

The pattern across the four is consistent. The revision re-fixes the basic figure under whichever formulation is higher, the floor and ceiling of paragraph 8 then bind, dearness relief is applied on top at the current rate, and arrears run from 1 January 2016. For the pension in its wider setting, see the central government pension hub and the pension calculation article.

Revision of pension and the 8th Central Pay Commission

The 8th Central Pay Commission was constituted by Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure Resolution F. No. 01-01/2025-E.III(A) dated 3 November 2025, published in the Gazette of India Extraordinary the same day, under the chairpersonship of Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai, with Prof. Pulak Ghosh as part-time Member and Shri Pankaj Jain as Member-Secretary. The Resolution requires recommendations within 18 months of the date of constitution, which falls due on 3 May 2027.

What the terms of reference say about pensioners is narrower than the commentary around them. Clause (e) of the Resolution covers the Death-cum-Retirement Gratuity and the pensions of employees borne and not borne on the National Pension System, including the Unified Pension Scheme. It does not in terms extend to those who have already retired. Every Central Pay Commission since the 4th has in fact revised existing pensions, and Rule 66(1) of the CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021 supplies the power to do so whatever the terms of reference say, so a revision is expected. It is an inference from practice rather than a commitment on the face of the Resolution.

No figure for the 8th CPC revision can be stated as fact. Any fitment factor, minimum pension, ceiling, or effective date attributed to the 8th Central Pay Commission before its report and the notification of revised rules is a projection. What can be said is the shape the exercise has taken every time: a re-fixing of the basic pension for existing pensioners, a floor giving effect to modified parity, a concordance apparatus to deliver it at scale, and dearness relief continuing on its own twice-yearly cycle until the changeover. Existing pensioners under the Old Pension Scheme, and the assured-payout and family-pension side of the Unified Pension Scheme, are what such an exercise would reach; a National Pension System corpus carries no defined pension to revise.

Related Articles

• Central government pension
• Central government pension calculation
• Concordance table
• Notional pay fixation
• Index of rationalisation
• Fitment factor
• Pay matrix
• Grade pay
• CCS (Revised Pay) Rules, 2016
• Minimum and maximum pension
• Qualifying service
• Pension arrears
• Dearness relief
• Dearness pay
• Additional pension in old age
• Family pension
• Enhanced family pension
• Commutation of pension
• Commutation factor table
• Restoration of commuted pension
• One Rank One Pension
• Pension sanction process timeline
• Bhavishya
• SAMPANN
• PPO and life certificate
• Central Pension Accounting Office
• Income tax for pensioners
• Old Pension Scheme
• Unified Pension Scheme
• National Pension System
• CCS (Pension) Rules, 2021
• Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare
• 5th Central Pay Commission
• 6th Central Pay Commission
• 7th Central Pay Commission
• 8th Central Pay Commission
• Central Pay Commission

External references

• Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare
• Pensioners’ Portal, including the annual compendium of orders
• Central Pension Accounting Office
• Bhavishya, pension sanction and payment tracking
• The Gazette of India
• Income Tax Department

References

1. Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare, Office Memorandum No. 38/37/2016-P&PW(A)(ii), dated 4 August 2016, revising the pension of pre-2016 pensioners and family pensioners by multiplying the pre-revised basic pension as on 31 December 2015 by 2.57.
2. Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare, Office Memorandum No. 38/37/2016-P&PW(A), dated 12 May 2017: paragraph 4 (notional fixation under each intervening Pay Commission, pension at 50% and family pension at 30% of the notional pay), paragraph 5 (the higher of the two formulations), paragraph 7 (the starting point, with the pre-1986 cohort taken from the notional pay as on 1 January 1986), paragraph 8 (minimum of Rs. 9,000 and the ceilings of Rs. 1,25,000 and Rs. 75,000), paragraphs 11, 12, 19 and 20 (exclusions), paragraph 15 (additional pension for age), paragraph 17 (no arrears before 1 January 2016) and paragraph 18 (responsibility for issuing the revised authority under the existing PPO number).
3. Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare, Office Memorandum No. 38/37/2016-P&PW(A), dated 6 July 2017, enclosing Concordance Tables Nos. 1 to 58 with the concurrence of the Department of Expenditure at Diary No. 1(13)/EV/2017 dated 5 July 2017, paragraph 4 (the fixation rules prevail over a table); corrigenda dated 13 September 2017 (Tables 51 and 52) and 18 June 2020 (Table 29).
4. Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare, Office Memorandum No. 45/86/97-P&PW(A), dated 10 February 1998, fixing notional pay as on 1 January 1986 for pensioners who retired before that date.
5. Report of the Seventh Central Pay Commission, paragraphs 10.1.67 and 10.1.68, setting out the two formulations; Cabinet decision of 3 May 2017 recording the first formulation as not feasible to implement.
6. Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare, Office Memorandum No. 38/37/08-P&PW(A), dated 1 September 2008, paragraph 4.1 (consolidation with effect from 1 January 2006 by adding the existing pension, dearness pension, dearness relief at 24% and a fitment weightage of 40%) and paragraph 4.2 (the floor of 50% of the sum of the minimum of pay in the pay band and the grade pay corresponding to the pre-revised scale, reduced pro rata below full qualifying service and in no case below Rs. 3,500 a month), as recited in the Office Memoranda of even number dated 28 January 2013 and 6 April 2016.
7. Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare, Office Memorandum of even number dated 3 October 2008, narrowing paragraph 4.2 to the minimum of the pay in the pay band irrespective of the pre-revised scale plus the grade pay; Central Administrative Tribunal, Principal Bench, common order dated 1 November 2011 in OA No. 655/2010 and connected applications; Delhi High Court order dated 29 April 2013 in WP(C) No. 1535/2012; Supreme Court order dated 17 March 2015 in SLP(C) No. 36148/2013.
8. Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare, Office Memorandum dated 28 January 2013 (stepping up to 50% and 30% of the sum of the minimum of pay in the pay band and the grade pay per the Department of Expenditure fitment tables in Office Memorandum No. 1/1/2008-IC dated 30 August 2008, paragraph 9 restricting it to 24 September 2012); Office Memorandum dated 30 July 2015 (the same benefit from 1 January 2006); Office Memorandum No. 38/37/08-P&PW(A) dated 6 April 2016 (deleting paragraph 5 of the 2013 order and delinking the floor from 33 years of qualifying service, following the Central Administrative Tribunal, Ernakulam Bench order dated 16 August 2013 in OA No. 715/2012).
9. Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 2021, notified as G.S.R. 868(E) on 20 December 2021: Rule 44(1) (minimum Rs. 9,000 and maximum Rs. 1,25,000 a month), Rule 44(6) (additional pension by age), Rule 50(2)(a) (family pension at 30% and the enhanced rate of 50%, with their ceilings), Rule 52 (dearness relief), Rule 53 (processing of a pension case through Bhavishya), Rule 60(4) (the Accounts Officer’s Pension Payment Order or Revised Pension Payment Authority, the Special Seal of Authority and the twenty one day limit) and Rule 66 (revision of pension after authorisation, including the two-year bar on a downward revision for a clerical error).
10. Central Civil Services (Commutation of Pension) Rules, 1981, Rule 10 (commutation of a fraction of the increase on a retrospective revision) and the proviso to Rule 10-A (each commuted amount restored 15 years from its own date of reduction).
11. Ministry of Defence, Department of Ex-Servicemen Welfare, letter No. 17(01)/2017(02)/D(Pension/Policy) dated 5 September 2017 and letter of even number dated 17 October 2018 (notional pay fixation and concordance tables for pre-2016 armed forces pensioners); Railway Board letter No. 2016/F(E)III/1(1)/7 dated 11 July 2017, RBE No. 66/2017, applying the civil tables mutatis mutandis.
12. Ministry of Defence, Department of Ex-Servicemen Welfare, letter No. 12(1)/2014/D(Pen/Pol)-Part-II dated 7 November 2015, implementing One Rank One Pension with effect from 1 July 2014, and letter No. 1(1)/2019/D(Pen/Pol) dated 4 January 2023, sanctioning the revision with effect from 1 July 2019.
13. Union of India v. Tarsem Singh, Supreme Court of India, judgment dated 13 August 2008, (2008) 8 SCC 648, restricting relief on a belated claim to arrears for about three years before the writ petition; M.R. Gupta v. Union of India, (1995) 5 SCC 628, on a wrong fixation as a continuing wrong.
14. Income-tax Act, 2025, Section 157, relief on arrears received in a lump sum, replacing Section 89 of the repealed Income-tax Act, 1961; Income-tax Rules, 2026, rule 73 and Form No. 39, replacing Rule 21AA and Form 10E.
15. Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure, Resolution F. No. 01-01/2025-E.III(A), dated 3 November 2025, published in the Gazette of India Extraordinary, Part I Section 1, constituting the 8th Central Pay Commission under Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai, with recommendations due within 18 months of the date of constitution.
16. Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare, Office Memorandum No. 42/02/2024-P&PW(D)/E-9475, dated 24 April 2026, fixing dearness relief at 60% of basic pension with effect from 1 January 2026.