[2] A former Indian Administrative Service officer and a Rhodes Scholar of 1956[3] Dayal sat on the National Human Rights Commission of India as a member for two terms from 1998 to 2006.
[5] Born on 29 January 1935 in the Allahabad district of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh,[4] Dayal did his early schooling at Sherwood College in Nainital.
[6] As Chef de Cabinet, Dayal was given the rank of an under-secretary-general and he attended several diplomatic conferences including the 8th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Harare in 1988.
[1] It was during Boutros-Ghali's incumbency that Dayal assisted the secretary-general in preparing An Agenda for Peace: Preventive diplomacy, peacemaking and peace-keeping, which was presented at the Summit Meeting of the Security Council on 31 January 1992.
[9][10] On this Dayal commented: Japanese diplomat and academic, Sadako Ogata, was eventually appointed to the post of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
[14] In 2004, the Paul Volcker Committee set up by Kofi Annan, then Secretary-General of the United Nations, reported that some Indian politicians were beneficiaries in the Iraq Oil-for-Food Programme, in repose to this, the Government of India set up a machinery with Dayal, as a special envoy,[citation needed] to liaise with the United Nations agencies[15] and probe the alleged involvement of Indian politicians including Natwar Singh,[16] Minister of External Affairs at the time.