Kiran Bedi was born in Amritsar, Punjab, India. She was awarded a BA degree by the Government College for Women, Amritsar in 1968. She then earned a Masters degree in Social Science from Punjab University, Chandigarh, graduating top of her class in 1970. She later obtained Bachelor of Laws in 1988 from Faculty of Law, University of Delhi. In 1993, she obtained a Ph.D. in Social Sciences from the Department of Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi where the topic of her thesis was Drug Abuse and Domestic Violence.