List of high commissioners of India to Sri Lanka

The High Commissioner of India to Sri Lanka, formerly the High Commissioner of India to Ceylon, is the chief diplomatic representative of India to Sri Lanka. The high commission is located in Colombo.

History

India's diplomatic mission to the Dominion of Ceylon was created following India's independence in 1947. Since both nations became part of the Commonwealth of Nations, the diplomatic mission was designated as a high commission, rather than an embassy. V. V. Giri was appointed as the inaugural high commissioner by Governor-General Lord Mountbatten and remained in office until 1951.
Following Ceylon's becoming a republic in 1972, the mission was re-designated to Sri Lanka and the position was renamed to as the High Commissioner of India to Sri Lanka.

List

Ref:

	Portrait	Name	Took office	Left office	Appointer	Notes
1		V. V. Giri	1947	1951	Lord Mountbatten	Later President of India
2		K. P. Kesava Menon	1951	1952	Rajendra Prasad
3		Chandulal Chunilal Desai	1953	1954	Rajendra Prasad	Later Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha
4		Birendra Narayan Chakraborty,	1955	1956	Rajendra Prasad	Later Governor of Haryana
5		Y. D. Gundevia,	1957	1960	Rajendra Prasad	First term; later Foreign Secretary
6		B. K. Kapur,	1960	1964	Rajendra Prasad
7		Bhim Sen Sachar	1964	1967	Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan	Formerly Chief Minister of Punjab ; Governor of Orissa and Andhra Pradesh
		Y. D. Gundevia,	1967	1969	Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan	Second term; formerly Foreign Secretary
8		Yogendra Krishna Puri,	1969	1972	V. V. Giri
9		V. C. Coelho,	1973	1975	V. V. Giri
10		Gurbachan Singh,	1975	1978	Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed
11		Thomas Abraham,	1978	1982	Neelam Sanjiva Reddy
12		Surbir Jit Singh Chhatwal,	1982	1985	Zail Singh
13		Jyotindra Nath Dixit,	1985	1989	Zail Singh	Later Foreign Secretary ; and National Security Advisor
14		Lakhan Lal Mehrotra,	1989	1990	Ramaswamy Venkataraman
15		Nagendra Nath Jha,	1990	1993	Ramaswamy Venkataraman	Later Lieutenant Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Islands ; and Lieutenant Governor of Pondicherry
16		Nareshwar Dayal,	1993	1997	Shankar Dayal Sharma
17		Shivshankar Menon,	1997	2000	K. R. Narayanan	Later Foreign Secretary ; and National Security Advisor
18		Gopalkrishna Gandhi,	2000	2002	K. R. Narayanan	Formerly Secretary to the President of India ; and later Governor of West Bengal
19		Nirupem Sen,	2002	2004	K. R. Narayanan	-
20		Nirupama Rao,	2004	2006	A. P. J. Abdul Kalam	Later Foreign Secretary
21		Alok Prasad,	2006	2009	A. P. J. Abdul Kalam	Later Deputy National Security Advisor
22		Ashok Kantha,	2009	2013	Pratibha Patil
23		Yashvardhan Kumar Sinha,	2013	2016	Pranab Mukherjee	Later Chief Information Commissioner
24		Taranjit Singh Sandhu,	2017	2020	Pranab Mukherjee
25		Gopal Bagalay,	2020	2023	Ram Nath Kovind
26		Santosh Jha,	2023	Incumbent	Droupadi Murmu