In Memoriam: Inderjit Singh Bindra (1944–2026)

Inderjit Singh Bindra, the distinguished Punjab cadre Indian Administrative Service officer and visionary cricket administrator who guided Punjab through three transformative decades and stewarded Indian cricket into financial and organisational prominence on the world stage, passed away today. He was 81.

Bindra’s death marks the conclusion of an extraordinary institutional career spanning more than four decades, during which he moved seamlessly between the senior echelons of the civil service and cricket administration, bringing to both spheres a rare combination of decisive leadership, legal acumen, and entrepreneurial vision.

The Early Administrative Years

A career bureaucrat shaped in the tradition of India’s finest administrative officers, Bindra served as Deputy Commissioner of Ludhiana from 1972 to 1974, during which he established a reputation for swift, legally sound decision-making and administrative efficacy. His tenure included initiatives to address urban encroachments and maintain civic order—work that brought him recognition in Punjab’s bureaucratic circles. He was subsequently posted as Deputy Commissioner of Patiala, where from 1974 to 1975 he continued his trajectory as an effective administrator attuned to local governance challenges.

The defining moment of Bindra’s civil service career arrived in the 1980s, when he was elevated to the position of Special Secretary to the President of India, Giani Zail Singh, during a critically turbulent period in the nation’s history. Serving from 1982 to 1987, Bindra occupied a position of considerable consequence during Operation Blue Star, the egregious military assault on the Golden Temple, Amritsar and the subsequent assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. In this role, he reportedly played a crucial part in moderating tensions between President Zail Singh and Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi—a delicate balancing act that preserved institutional equilibrium during a period when constitutional propriety and political stability hung in precarious balance.

PCA Stadium, Phase 10, SAS Nagar (Mohali)

The Transformation of Punjab Cricket
It was in cricket administration, however, that Bindra would leave his most indelible mark. In 1978, at a time when the Punjab Cricket Association had deteriorated into administrative chaos and institutional irrelevance, the association’s leadership unanimously requested that Bindra assume the presidency. Punjab’s cricket had reached a nadir: the state that had produced some of India’s finest cricketers—Bishan Singh Bedi, the Amarnath brothers, and Madan Lal among them—had witnessed a wholesale exodus of talent to Delhi and other cricketing centres, driven by poor institutional management and the absence of competitive infrastructure.

Bindra’s assumption of the PCA presidency in 1978 marked a watershed. With a methodical approach grounded in administrative discipline and creative vision, he rebuilt the association from institutional ruins. Within a decade and a half, Punjab had not merely recovered but ascended to the apex of Indian domestic cricket. In the 1992–93 season, Punjab won the Ranji Trophy for the first time in the association’s history, defeating Maharashtra in a decisive final. This championship symbolised the complete rehabilitation of a state cricket body that had once seemed irretrievable.

Critically, Bindra recognised that cricket’s future lay in modern infrastructure and the professionalisation of administration. He conceived and built the Punjab Cricket Association Stadium in Mohali—a world-class facility designed according to international specifications that would eventually bear his name. The stadium’s construction was not merely a physical undertaking; it represented a conceptual reimagining of what a state cricket body could achieve. In 2015, four years before his retirement as PCA president, the stadium was officially renamed the I.S. Bindra PCA Stadium in recognition of his foundational role.

Bindra’s tenure at PCA was marked by a steady stream of international cricket matches hosted in the state. His efforts to restore international cricket to Punjab, after years of terrorism-related disruptions, were exemplified when he facilitated an India versus New Zealand one-day international in Amritsar in November 1995—a match that symbolised the return of normalcy to Punjab’s sporting life and represented a significant achievement in post-terrorism rehabilitation.

The BCCI Presidency and Global Transformation

Bindra’s ascendancy within the BCCI reflected his growing stature in Indian cricket. Between 1993 and 1996, he served as BCCI president during a period of profound institutional transformation. His tenure coincided with—and significantly facilitated—Indian cricket’s metamorphosis from a financially fragile, administratively chaotic body into a sophisticated, commercially dynamic organisation.

With his longtime collaborator Jagmohan Dalmiya and cricket administrator N.K.P. Salve, Bindra had been instrumental in the 1987 Reliance World Cup, the first World Cup to be held outside England. This achievement alone represented a seismic shift in global cricket politics: for the first time, the tournament’s gravitational centre had moved from the Anglo-sphere to South Asia, a development that fundamentally altered the sport’s trajectory and foreshadowed India’s eventual dominance of world cricket.

The 1996 World Cup—co-hosted by India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka—was equally a product of Bindra’s strategic acumen and Dalmiya’s entrepreneurial tenacity. The tournament’s successful hosting under Bindra’s BCCI presidency and Dalmiya’s operational leadership demonstrated that the subcontinent possessed the institutional, logistical, and financial capacity to organise cricket at the highest level.

Beyond tournament hosting, Bindra played a pivotal role in television rights monetisation. He recognised, with prescient clarity, that satellite television represented an unprecedented revenue opportunity for Indian cricket. Under his stewardship and that of Dalmiya, the BCCI began extracting substantial payments from private broadcasters for television rights—a commercialisation that transformed the board from financial dependency into financial muscle. This shift in revenue streams would eventually position India as the world’s pre-eminent cricket power in terms of financial resources.

Additionally, Bindra served as Principal Advisor to the International Cricket Council when Sharad Pawar held the ICC presidency, and was instrumental in the conceptualisation and establishment of the Indian Premier League—a franchise-based tournament model that would revolutionise cricket globally.

Handing over the ICC ODI Championship Trophy (Reliance Cup) to Australia’s Ricky Ponting in New Delhi, 26 October 2008.

Administrative Philosophy and Legacy

Throughout his institutional career—whether in civil administration or cricket governance—Bindra exemplified a particular administrative philosophy: the unwavering commitment to legal propriety combined with decisive, swift decision-making. Colleagues and subordinates frequently remarked that unlike many bureaucrats bogged down by procedural niceties and file movements, Bindra possessed a comprehensive understanding of law and regulation and deployed these instruments proactively rather than defensively. He used procedural rules not as impediments to action but as enablers of positive intervention.

This combination of legal sophistication and entrepreneurial decisiveness was rare among officers of his generation. Many who attempted to emulate his style fell short, suggesting that Bindra’s effectiveness derived not merely from methodology but from an underlying intellectual framework that integrated legal knowledge, administrative judgement, and strategic vision into a coherent whole.

Concluding Years

Bindra’s involvement in cricket administration extended across thirty-six years—from 1978 to 2014, when he retired from the PCA presidency due to declining health. In 2015, he was elected PCA Chairman, continuing his association with the institution he had rebuilt. His retirement marked the end of an era for Punjab cricket; few individuals had wielded such sustained influence over a state sports body for such an extended period.

In recent years, Bindra’s health had deteriorated progressively. Yet his contributions to Indian cricket remained recognised and celebrated. When the BCCI reinstituted him to its marketing committee in 2005, after years of estrangement from Dalmiya, it represented a symbolic reconciliation that acknowledged both men’s indispensable roles in transforming Indian cricket.

A Rare Institutional Figure

Inderjit Singh Bindra belonged to a vanishing category: the senior administrator who commanded respect across multiple institutional domains and whose work transcended the narrow bounds of his formal portfolio. Few civil servants transition successfully into sports administration at such rarefied levels; fewer still leave an indelible institutional legacy in both spheres.

Punjab has lost not merely a cricket administrator but a custodian of institutional integrity. India has lost a figure whose strategic vision helped position the nation as a cricketing superpower. And the broader world of cricket governance has lost one of its architects—a man whose tenure in positions of authority coincided with cricket’s globalisation and the assertion of non-Anglo spheres of influence over the sport’s direction.

Bindra is survived by his family. His cremation is expected to take place in New Delhi tomorrow. In the annals of Indian cricket administration, his name will remain inseparable from Punjab’s resurrection and India’s ascendance to pre-eminence in world cricket.

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FOOTNOTE: CBI Inquiry into Mohali Cricket Stadium
Ironically, Inderjit Singh Bindra did face a CBI investigation over the allotment of land for the Mohali cricket stadium—arguably the crowning infrastructural achievement of his career—but the matter ultimately ended in his complete exoneration, with no criminal liability whatsoever established against him.

Background and reason for the CBI inquiry

In the early 1990s, land in Mohali originally earmarked for a sports complex was transferred by the Punjab Sports Department to the Punjab Cricket Association (PCA), of which I.S. Bindra was president, for construction of the cricket stadium that became the PCA Stadium, Mohali.

At that time, Bindra also held senior government positions connected with housing/urban development and sports, and the key allegation was that government land had been transferred to a private body (PCA) without proper sanction from the competent authority (Governor/Cabinet) and on terms unduly favourable to PCA, including nominal lease rent.

On the complaint and initiative of then Punjab Chief Secretary V.K. Khanna, the Punjab Government issued notifications under the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act in February 1997, extending CBI jurisdiction to Punjab to investigate two matters: (i) disproportionate assets of another IAS officer, and (ii) “allotment of land and funds to the Punjab Cricket Association” for the Mohali stadium.

The CBI registered an FIR under Section 120B read with Section 420 IPC and related provisions, describing the transfer of about 15–20 acres of government land to the PCA as possibly involving criminal conspiracy, cheating, misuse of official position and wrongful loss to the state.

Alleged quid pro quo and nature of accusations

The broad allegation was that Bindra, while holding charge as a senior secretary in the Punjab Government and simultaneously serving as PCA president, used his official position to “gift” or illegally transfer prime public land and government funds to the PCA, an association in which he was personally involved.

Critics (notably V.K. Khanna) claimed this amounted to:

transfer of land without approval of the competent authority,

use of land sanctioned for a government sports complex to instead benefit a specific association (PCA), and

grant of substantial government funds to the PCA, allegedly without due process, thereby conferring wrongful gain on PCA and causing wrongful loss to the Exchequer.

In political and media discourse, this was portrayed as a “quid pro quo” where Bindra allegedly leveraged his dual role (senior bureaucrat and PCA president) to secure land and money for PCA on concessional terms; however, no evidence of personal enrichment or kickbacks to Bindra himself was ultimately sustained.

Course of investigation and legal/judicial handling
After the CBI registered the case and began investigation, the Punjab Government later changed its stance and advised the CBI to stop further investigation in the Mohali land and PCA matter, which itself became a subject of legal challenge.

The notifications authorising CBI jurisdiction and the subsequent attempt to withdraw/neutralise that jurisdiction were examined in proceedings before the Punjab and Haryana High Court and, ultimately, the Supreme Court in the matter concerning State of Punjab vs. V.K. Khanna.

In these proceedings, the higher judiciary scrutinised both the initiation of the CBI inquiry and the later efforts of the state government to stall or recall it, and emphasised that such investigations could not be quashed or manipulated for collateral or political reasons.

Throughout this process, Bindra consistently maintained that the allotment was a form of legitimate state patronage to sports, comparable to government land being given for the Delhi Golf Club, Eden Gardens, Wankhede Stadium and other major sporting facilities, and that PCA, as a cricket association, was not a commercial entity.

Outcome: closure and exoneration

Over time, the CBI inquiry into the Mohali land allotment did not culminate in a chargesheet establishing criminal culpability against Bindra; no conclusive proof was produced that he had personally derived pecuniary benefit or that there was fraudulent intent behind the land and fund allocations to the PCA.

The matter effectively culminated in closure/pendency without conviction, and Bindra continued to hold significant positions in cricket administration (including BCCI president and later ICC adviser), which would have been impossible had any substantive criminal finding been upheld against him.

Public and institutional treatment of the case, and the absence of any adverse judicial finding, meant that Bindra was regarded in official and cricketing circles as having been fully cleared of wrongdoing in relation to the Mohali land issue; in that sense, he was, in practical and reputational terms, completely exonerated.

End Note

It is a sad state of affairs that professional jealousy—rather than any credible allegation of personal quid pro quo—could be instrumental in triggering a CBI inquiry, with public decisions then pulled apart on hyper-technicalities. This is precisely the kind of administrative environment that discourages most civil servants from taking bold, courageous decisions in the public interest, especially when such decisions can be recast as criminality decades later on the flimsiest of grounds. Bindra, however, was made of sterner stuff. A proceeding that might have demoralised an ordinary officer, he took in his stride—and he was fully exonerated.

In short, the CBI was asked to examine whether Bindra had abused his official positions to secure land and funding on unduly favourable terms for the Punjab Cricket Association in Mohali, but the investigation never resulted in a proven quid pro quo or any criminal liability. The case ended without indictment or conviction, and he emerged institutionally and publicly exonerated. If anything, the apex of his glory came after this phase, as his stature in cricket administration continued to rise.

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