Objective: In this study, a new class of Balakrishnan distribution by extending the alpha skew generalized t distribution is proposed. Methods: Statistical properties of the Balakrishnan alpha skew generalized t distribution are studied in detail. In particular, specific expressions of the density and distribution function, moments, skewness, kurtosis and mode of the particular distribution are derived. The parameters of the new family of distributions are estimated by the method of maximum likelihood. Lastly, the flexibility, suitability and usefulness of the proposed distribution are illustrated by analyzing real-life data set. Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) and Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) are used for model selection. Findings: The proposed distribution performs well in terms of AIC and BIC in real-life data modelling than the other symmetric and asymmetric distributions considered here. Novelty: The main uniqueness of the proposed distribution is to modal bimodal and heavy/light-tailed datasets.