Marriage automatically cancels nomination in GPF after employee weds: Supreme Court

New Delhi, 8 December 2025: The Supreme Court has ruled that once a government employee gets married, any earlier nomination made in favour of parents in the General Provident Fund (GPF) becomes invalid automatically. After the employee’s death, the entire GPF amount has to be equally divided between the wife and the parents.

A bench of Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice N Kotiswar Singh set aside the Bombay High Court judgment and restored the order of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) that had directed equal distribution of GPF between the deceased employee’s wife and mother.

The Court observed, “The moment the employee gets married or constitutes a family, the nomination earlier made in favour of the mother becomes invalid.” Relying on the 1984 landmark judgment in Sarbati Devi vs Usha Devi, the bench reiterated that mere nomination does not give the mother a superior claim over the wife.

Accordingly, the Supreme Court directed that the deceased employee’s GPF be equally shared between the wife (appellant) and the mother (respondent no. 1). Case title: Smt. Bolla Malathi Versus B. Suguna and Ors.

This judgment is crucial for all government employees because most people nominate parents while unmarried and forget to update the nomination after marriage. The Supreme Court has clarified that no fresh nomination is required - the old nomination becomes void the moment marriage takes place, and the amount is automatically divided equally among eligible family members.

Additional note: A similar principle applies in Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) and gratuity in many cases, though nomination sometimes gets priority there; however, for Central Government GPF, this Supreme Court ruling is now the settled law.