Navigating PF Transfers: Can You Move Funds from a Trust to a New Employer?

One of our company employees applied to transfer his PF to his new company. Being an exempted establishment, he submitted one copy of Form 13 (revised) to the Regional PF office and one copy to the company. His pension details have been transferred, though his PF was not transferred due to some unknown reason from the PF trust to his new PF account, which was held with EPFO.

Now, the employee has joined a third company and he now wishes to transfer his 2nd company PF and pension to the third company. The PF amount is still lying with the 1st company's PF trust, although the pension has been transferred. Is it possible to transfer the PF amount from the trust to the 2nd company as the employee has not yet transferred his PF and pension from the 2nd company to the third company?

Please advise.

For a trust fund, the Form 13 (or as per the trust) has to be submitted to the trust, as the trust has no direct accountability to EPFO. It seems that the trust maintained the EDLI and EPS with EPF but maintained the main corpus of account 1 with themselves only. So, the employee can either withdraw account 1 or submit a claim to the trust only to make a transfer.

I understand your point, but what I wanted to know is whether the individual has already transferred his pension from Company 1 to Company 2 and has now joined Company 3. During the transfer process from the 1st company to the 2nd company, he submitted Form 13 (revised) to the 1st company's trust and also provided a copy to EPFO for the pension transfer. However, due to some reasons, his PF was not transferred from the trust to the 2nd company and is currently still held in the trust account. Therefore, my query is whether it is now possible to transfer the PF amount to the 2nd company's PF account even though the pension has already been transferred from the 1st company to the 2nd.

Thank you.

From the case situation, it is assumed that the trust availed the EPS and EDLI services of EPF but holds the main corpus with them only in a trust-based PF. EPFO has no role, but only the trust can either pay or transfer the funds to the requested fund upon receipt of requisite form/s from the member.

Regarding the transfer, any route map can be opted for - either 1 to 2 to 3 or 1 to 3 direct. The member just has to submit the transfer claim to the trust, and not to EPFO.