[1] Rasgotra was born 11 September 1924 in a Dogra-Brahmin family which hails originally from Shakargarh, a small town which is now in Pakistan on the border with India, only 30 km from the Kartarpur corridor.
He was appointed to the Punjab Educational Service in March 1948 and also worked as a lecturer in English at the Satish Chander Dhawan Government College in 1948 and 1949.
[8][9] Later in his career, he was High Commissioner of India to the United Kingdom and Ambassador to Morocco, Tunisia, the Netherlands, Nepal, France, and UNESCO.
It is claimed by the then-Deputy Chief of Mission of the Embassy of the United States in New Delhi in 1984, in an interview with a news channel, that communications between the government of India and himself relating to the release of Warren Anderson went through the Foreign Secretary.
[11] In a subsequent interview with Karan Thapar, Rasgotra held that releasing Warren Anderson was the right thing to do, since he had been earlier promised safe passage.