Air Mshl Jeetendra Mishra (retd), who commanded the Indian Air Force's Western Air Command through Operation Sindoor, was appointed the first chief executive officer of the Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust on Wednesday, trust officials said. The Trust runs the management and day to day operations of the Ram temple at Ayodhya, and the post has been vacant as a full time office since the Trust was constituted.

His name emerged from a shortlist of three, drawn from 5,585 applications. The retired officer is 62 and belongs to Deoria district in Uttar Pradesh.

The search committee was headed by Justice Pramod Kohli (retd) and included Lt Gen Vishnukant Chaturvedi (retd) and former scientist Suresh Haware. It submitted its final report to Trust treasurer Govind Dev Giri on Tuesday.

The panel had recommended "three highly qualified professionals" after assessing leadership, management expertise, integrity and vision, committee secretary Sameer Panda said.

Air Mshl Jeetendra Mishra at the Western Air Command

He took charge as Air Officer Commanding in Chief of the Western Air Command on January 1, 2025, succeeding Air Mshl Pankaj Mohan Sinha. Headquartered in New Delhi, the command is the largest and most heavily tasked in the Indian Air Force, holding responsibility across two fronts. Its area of responsibility takes in Ladakh and Himachal Pradesh facing China, and Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab and parts of Rajasthan on the western side, along with the air bases at Chandigarh, Delhi and western Uttar Pradesh.

Sixteen months later he retired, on April 30, 2026.

The middle of that tenure was May 2025. Operation Sindoor followed the April 22 terror attack at Pahalgam in which 26 civilians were killed, and Indian forces struck nine terror linked sites across Pakistan and Pakistan occupied Kashmir from the early hours of May 7. As head of the Western Air Command, Air Mshl Mishra was responsible for one of the IAF's key operational commands through those four days, adding an operational dimension to a record already built on command, flying, testing and staff assignments, according to a statement.

He was awarded the Sarvottam Yudh Seva Medal for that role. The decoration is India's highest distinguished service award for war, conflict or hostilities, and seven officers across the three services received it for Operation Sindoor at the Defence Investiture Ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan in June.

Air power questions from those four days have stayed in public discussion since. Former Chief of Defence Staff Gen Anil Chauhan told an audience in New Delhi last month that a loitering munition sent to hunt radars near Sargodha may well have come down on Kirana Hills, and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval gave his first account of the days after Pahalgam in a television interview on Independence Day.

A fighter pilot of 1986 seniority

Air Mshl Jeetendra Mishra was commissioned into the fighter stream of the Indian Air Force on December 6, 1986. He served more than 39 years.

He is a Fighter Combat Leader and an experimental test pilot, with more than 3,000 hours of flying across a range of aircraft types. He commanded a fighter squadron and two frontline air bases, and served as commandant of the Aircraft and Systems Testing Establishment at Bengaluru, the IAF unit that carries out flight testing and evaluation of aircraft, systems and armament before they enter service.

Training and staff appointments

He is an alumnus of the National Defence Academy at Pune, the Air Force Test Pilots School at Bengaluru, the Air Command and Staff College in the United States and the Royal College of Defence Studies in the United Kingdom.

At Air Headquarters he held several senior appointments, among them director of the Operational Planning and Assessment Group. His posting immediately before the Western Air Command was Deputy Chief of Integrated Defence Staff (Operations), a tri service appointment under the Ministry of Defence that sits at the centre of joint operational planning. He also holds the Ati Vishisht Seva Medal and the Vishisht Seva Medal.

How the Trust ran the selection

Of the 5,585 applications received, 3,577 candidates submitted details for evaluation under a 600 mark framework. The field narrowed to 108 candidates who scored 470 marks or more, who were then taken through virtual interactions. Sixteen were interviewed in person at Ayodhya on August 11 and 12.

The process used AI assisted screening alongside manual assessment, trust officials said.

The appointment comes after the controversy over the alleged embezzlement of temple donations, which led to the arrest of eight people and the resignation of Champat Rai as general secretary. Wednesday's was the third meeting of the Trust since that case surfaced.

Three new trustees named

The Trust has also named Mahesh Bhagchandka from Delhi, former Additional Advocate General Madan Mohan Pandey from Ayodhya, and Nirmala Yadav as trustees, as per media reports.

Nripendra Mishra, chairman of the Ram Mandir Construction Committee, had said earlier that a full time chief executive was central to bringing professional administration and transparency to the running of the temple project, which draws pilgrims through the year and handles donations at a scale few religious institutions in the country manage.

The decision was taken at a meeting attended by Trust president Mahant Nritya Gopal Das, Swami Kamalnayan Das, interim general secretary Dr Krishna Mohan, trustee Mahant Dinendra Das and treasurer Swami Govind Dev Giri, among others.