[1] Romesh Bhandari was born in Lahore, Punjab Province, British India (present day Pakistan) on 29 March 1928.

He was the son of Amar Nath Bhandari, a Punjab High Court Judge who was part of the bench which decided the Mahatma Gandhi Assassination case.

[3] He joined the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) in 1950 as the Vice-Consul at the consulate in New York.

[5] He then returned to the Ministry of External Affairs as Additional Secretary from February 1977 to July 1979.

[1] In 1984, Bhandari brought back to India the extradited hijackers of the Indian Airlines Flight 421 from Dubai in 1984.