Air Marshal Jeetendra Mishra named first CEO of the Ram Temple trust

The Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust on 2 September named retired Air Marshal Jeetendra Mishra as its first full-time chief executive officer. He was one of three names sent up from 5,585 applications.

Mishra is from Deoria district in Uttar Pradesh. He retired on 30 April 2026 as Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Air Command, after heading the command during Operation Sindoor. He earlier served as Deputy Chief of Integrated Defence Staff (Operations). His decorations include the Yudh Seva Medal. He told ANI the appointment was “the blessings of Lord Ram” after 43 years in the air force.

How the shortlist was built

The three-member selection committee was retired Justice Pramod Kohli, Lieutenant General (retd) Vishnukant Chaturvedi and nuclear scientist Dr Suresh Haware. Committee secretary Sameer Panda said the panel scored candidates on institutional leadership, management, integrity and the brief required to run a site of national and international traffic.

The process mixed machine screening with human review. A 600-mark framework was applied to the pile. Some 3,577 candidates sat the first assessment. Anyone at 470 or above went forward. The panel then held virtual interviews with 108 applicants before sending three names to the trust.

The trust meeting that sealed the choice was attended by president Mahant Nritya Gopal Das, Swami Kamalnayan Das, interim general secretary Dr Krishna Mohan, trustee Mahant Dinendra Das and treasurer Swami Govind Dev Giri.

The posts filled in the same sitting

The CEO job was not the only vacancy. Former treasurer Govind Dev Giri was named general secretary. Mahesh Bhagchandka of Delhi was named treasurer. The trust also inducted three new trustees: Madan Mohan Pandey of Ayodhya, Bhagchandka, and Dr Nirmala Yadav of Shikohabad.

Those moves follow a donation-theft case that led to eight arrests and to Champat Rai’s resignation as general secretary in June. The trust had been running with an interim general secretary. Creating a professional CEO, and refilling the secretary and treasurer chairs in one meeting, is the institutional reply to that scandal.

Kamalnayan Das, on the religious affairs committee, said before the meeting that the priority was the day-to-day running of the temple. That is the job description Mishra now holds: queues, accounts, contracts, security and the public face of a trust that has been under criminal investigation for missing cash.

What a CEO changes

Until this week the temple was administered through office-bearers drawn from the trust’s religious and political network. A full-time CEO, hired through an open call that drew more than five thousand files, puts a former theatre commander between the trustees and the staff. It does not remove the trustees. It does put a named officer on the accounts and the crowd-management plan.

Mishra asked for the capacity to carry the role. The test will be specific. Can the trust publish a clean donation trail. Can it show that the eight-person case does not sit beside an open cash window. Can a retired air marshal, six months out of Western Air Command, run a pilgrimage site whose daily load is measured in lakhs, not sorties.

The trust has now put a soldier, a new secretary and a new treasurer on the same organogram. The next public document that matters is not another appointment. It is the first audited year under that structure.