Shri Nehchal Sandhu, Deputy National Security Advisor and Secretary, National Security Council Secretariat, resigned from his position with effect from 31 July 2014 for personal reasons. Prime Minister accepted his resignation with regret and expressed appreciation for Shri Sandhu’s outstanding service to the country in a career spanning over 40 years – as a police officer, Director of Intelligence Bureau and Deputy National Security Advisor.
Nehchal Sandhu was appointed Deputy National Security Adviser in the Indian Prime Minister’s Office on March 21, 2013. A career officer of the covenanted Indian Police Service, Nehchal Sandhu put in 40 years after his initial appointment in July 1973. During that extended tenure, the first five years were spent in field level policing, involving prevention of crime, investigation, detection and prosecution in specific jurisdictions in the Eastern Indian province of Bihar.
Thereafter, Nehchal Sandhu spent 34½ years in the federal Intelligence Bureau, during the last two years of which tenure he headed this Bureau as its Director. During much of this period, his duties related to the countering of terrorism, analysis of disruptive trends, security management and technological upgradation.
He has served overseas in Canada as Counsellor in the High Commission of India in Ottawa in the mid 1990s and is widely travelled.