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Naveen Jindal (born 9 March 1970) is an Indian industrialist, politician, and philanthropist. He is the Chairman of Jindal Steel and Power and serves as the Founding Chancellor of O.P. Jindal Global University. He represents the Kurukshetra constituency in the 18th Lok Sabha as a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He previously served as a Member of Parliament from 2004 to 2014 representing the Indian National Congress.
Jindal is known for his role in a landmark legal case that led to a 2004 Supreme Court ruling affirming the right of Indian citizens to fly the national flag on all days, a right previously restricted under the Flag Code of India.
As a polo player and sports enthusiast, Jindal has led the Jindal Panther Polo Team and also represented India in international shooting competitions, including the Asian Games and South Asian Games. He has received several recognitions, including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the University of Texas at Dallas in 2023 and the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2010.
Jindal is also active in the education and CSR sectors through institutions and initiatives established in memory of his father, O.P. Jindal.
His father was born into a farming family in Haryana's Hisar district, and became the founder of the steel and power conglomerate, the O.P. Jindal Group. Om Prakash Jindal contested elections to the Haryana Legislative Assembly and won in 1991, 2000 and 2005; he also contested elections to the Lok Sabha from Haryana's Kurukshetra constituency in 1996 and won. He served as a minister in the Government of Haryana until he died in a helicopter crash in 2005, aged 74.
After his death, her wife Savitri Jindal joined politics and contested the Haryana Legislative Assembly elections from Hisar in 2005 and 2009 from the ticket of the Indian National Congress and won both terms. She was appointed as a minister in the Government of Haryana. She is the Chairperson Emeritus of Jindal Stainless Limited.
Naveen is married to Shallu Jindal. The couple has two children, a son and a daughter.
Naveen has eight siblings, including Prithviraj Jindal, Sajjan Jindal and Ratan Jindal. Prithviraj Jindal is the Chairman (Non Executive) of Jindal SAW Ltd. Sajjan Jindal is the Chairman of JSW Group.
The Delhi High Court ruled in Jindal’s favor in 1995, stating that the Flag Code was a set of executive instructions and not enforceable law. The court held that flying the national flag was a form of expression protected under the Constitution.
The Union Government appealed the decision, and the matter was heard by the Supreme Court. In its 2004 judgment, the Supreme Court upheld the High Court’s decision, affirming that the right to fly the national flag was indeed part of the fundamental right to freedom of expression, provided it adhered to the Flag Code of India.
Jindal’s efforts in the legal battle are widely regarded as pivotal in making it a right for all Indian citizens to display the national flag on any day. He has since advocated for declaring 23 January—the date of the Supreme Court ruling—as “National Flag Day”.
He has been ranked amongst Asia’s 25 Hottest People in Business by the Fortune Asia magazine for turning a struggling steel company into an Asian blue-chip giant. He has also been ranked as India’s Best CEO by Business Today based on a BT-INSEAD-HBR study of top value creators for the period 1995 to 2011. JSPL has been rated the Second Highest Value Creator in the world by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) of USA.
Naveen Jindal set up the world's first coal-gasification based steelmaking plant at Angul, Odisha that uses the locally available high-ash coal and turns it into synthesis gas for steel making thus reducing the dependence on imported coke-rich coal. Jindal believes that coal gasification technology has immense potential for countries like India, where non-coking coal is abundantly available. JSPL's coal gas-based steel tech became a case study at Harvard University.
Recently Union steel minister Ram Chandra Prasad Singh inaugurated Jindal Steel's 1.4 MTPA TMT rebar mill at its integrated complex in Odisha's Angul district.
Jindal Steel is expanding its Angul Plant capacity from 6 MTPA to 12MTPA and the company will achieve an overall 15 MTPA steelmaking capacity by 2025.
Jindal's company JSPL saw a tough time with debt levels going to 50,000 crore rupees.
Business India magazine wrote: "JSPL has placed a singular focus on sweating its assets, improving capacity utilisations and deleveraging. From a loss-making company to making a PAT of Rs7,500 crore is a big story."
He is also the founding patron of OP Jindal University (OPJU) in Raigarh, Chhattisgarh. Established in 2008 as an engineering college, it later evolved into a private university offering specialized programs in steelmaking, metallurgy, and management. In 2020, it was recognized as the ‘Best Private University in Chhattisgarh’ at The Progress Global Awards.
He was also recognized with the AsiaOne Super 50 COVID-19 Commitment Award for 2020–21 for these contributions.
After returning to India, he entered active politics and contested the 2004 Lok Sabha election from the Kurukshetra constituency in Haryana as a candidate of the Indian National Congress (INC). He won by a margin of over 130,000 votes, defeating Abhay Singh Chautala. He was re-elected in 2009 and served as a Member of Parliament until 2014. During his tenure, Jindal advocated for issues such as food and nutrition security, women's empowerment, and environmental protection. He introduced a private member bill on food security that contributed to the National Food Security Act. Jindal was named in the coal block allocation case involving the allocation of the Amarkonda Murgadangal coal block in Jharkhand. The CBI filed a final report in 2017 following its investigation.
He lost the 2014 Lok Sabha election to Raj Kumar Saini of the BJP.
In this term (2024–present), Jindal is serving as:
In 2007, he won a gold medal in the team skeet event at the Singapore Open Shooting Championship. He was also part of the Haryana shooting team that won a gold medal at the 54th National Shooting Championship (Big Bore) in the civilian category held in Gurgaon in May 2011.
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