Chandigarh, April 16 -- The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission-2 has come to the aid of an aggrieved provident fund (PF) subscriber whose dues were not transferred for nearly a decade after switching jobs in 2010. Holding the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) guilty of deficiency in service, the commission has directed it to pay Rs.50,000 as compensation for the inordinate delay. Omesh Garg, a resident of Sector 38 West, Chandigarh, had submitted that he had sought transfer of his EPF accumulations after moving from Tech Mahindra to Infosys in 2010. Despite submitting a transfer application in September that year, Garg alleged that no meaningful action was taken for years, forcing him to file multiple RTI applications and eventually approach the consumer commission. The commission noted that the EPFO transferred Rs.6.21 lakh only in April 2020, nearly 10 years after the request. Additional amounts of Rs.3.67 lakh and Rs.64,841 were credited in 2022 during the pendency of the case after re-examination of the claim. Garg contended that even after these payments, a sum of Rs.1.62 lakh remained unpaid. However, the commission rejected this claim, observing that his calculation sheet was not backed by expert verification and could not be relied upon over the EPFO's official computation. On the issue of delay, the commission held that the explanation of technical difficulties was unsubstantiated and unsupported by documentary evidence. "There is definitely an inordinate and unexplained delay of nearly a decade on the part of OP in transferring the provident fund accumulations of the complainant, which in itself amounts to deficiency in service and unfair trade practice on its part and the consumer complaint deserves to succeed to that extent," the commission under president Amrinder Singh Sidhu and member BM Sharma noted. Partly allowing the complaint, the commission directed the EPFO to pay a lump sum compensation of Rs.50,000 to the complainant for harassment and litigation expenses....