This study deals with the assimilation of TOPEX altimeter-derived sea level variability in a reduced-gravity model of the northwestern Indian Ocean. The assimilation has been done using variational assimilation method with adjoint technique. A cost function representing the misfit between the model and the data is minimized with the model equations acting as constraints. The initial conditions of the model are used as control parameters and the best-fit initial conditions are determined as a result of minimization carried out using a variable-storage quasi-Newton method. Experiment has been done with 10 days' cycle-averaged data of TOPEX. Assimilation for 10 days and 20 days has been performed and it has been seen that 20 days' assimilation of satellite data provides better results.