The Supreme Court dismissed Abu Salem’s plea seeking premature release in the 1993 Bombay serial blasts case, rejecting his contention that earned remission and undertrial custody should count towards the 25-year cap flowing from India’s extradition assurances to Portugal.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed a plea filed by Abu Salem, sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts, seeking premature release on the ground that his earned prison remission and the period spent as an undertrial should be counted towards the 25-year imprisonment cap that flows from India’s extradition assurances to Portugal [Abu Salem Abdul Qayoom Ansari v. State of Maharashtra].
A Bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta pronounced the verdict. The Court had, on an earlier date, indicated that it was inclined to dismiss the plea, but reserved its order and permitted the parties to file written submissions and supporting judgments before delivering its decision.
The 25-year cap and the extradition assurance
At the heart of the case is a commitment India gave to Portugal to secure Salem’s extradition. On December 17, 2002, India assured Portugal that, if extradited, Salem would neither be awarded the death penalty nor be imprisoned for more than 25 years. That assurance was later recognised by the Supreme Court in a July 2022 judgment, in which the apex court, relying on the treaty with Portugal, held that Salem would have to be released on completing 25 years in jail.
The dispute Salem raised was about how that 25-year period is to be computed. His case was not that the assurance should be disregarded, but that the clock should run in his favour more generously than the authorities had allowed, so that the 25 years would be treated as already, or nearly, complete.
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The remission argument
Appearing for Salem, Senior Advocate Rishi Malhotra advanced two principal contentions. First, that the period Salem spent as an undertrial prisoner had to be set off against his sentence, as directed by the TADA Court. Second, that the remission he had earned for good conduct in prison had to be counted towards his actual imprisonment. Malhotra was careful to distinguish this “earned remission” from statutory remission under Section 432 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which he said he was not claiming.
Relying on the Supreme Court’s decision in Swamy Shraddananda @ Murali Manohar v. State of Karnataka, Malhotra argued that earned remission granted for good conduct on a monthly, quarterly or yearly basis, or for performing assigned duties, forms part of actual imprisonment. He submitted that Salem had already earned approximately three years and two months of such remission, and that other convicts had been released after similar remission was taken into account. On his computation, the combined periods of undertrial custody, time served as a convict, and earned remission amounted to nearly 25 years, such that continued incarceration would violate the right to life and liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution.
Why the Bombay High Court had rejected the plea
The plea before the Supreme Court arose from an April 2025 judgment of the Bombay High Court, which had rejected Salem’s request for premature release. The High Court held that the 25-year period contemplated by the Supreme Court had not yet concluded and would expire only in November 2030, computing it from his first arrest on November 11, 2005. On that basis, it held the plea to be premature and misconceived.
Crucially, the High Court held that earned remissions could not be used to reduce the 25-year ceiling that flowed from the extradition arrangement. It reasoned that the 25-year cap was itself a substantial concession, operating as a remission of the life sentence necessitated by India’s international obligations, and that allowing ordinary prison remissions to further shorten that period would defeat the Supreme Court’s directions and undermine the very basis of the sentence structure. It found nothing in the Supreme Court’s 2022 judgment to suggest that earned remissions under the prison rules were intended to reduce the 25-year period, and held that neither the remissions under the Maharashtra Prisons (Remission System) Rules, 1962 nor remission under Section 432 CrPC could be invoked to cut down the fixed threshold.
By dismissing Salem’s appeal, the Supreme Court has affirmed that reasoning, leaving the 25-year period to run its full course.
Why the ruling matters
The decision is significant for the way it treats a sentence cap that arises not from ordinary sentencing law but from an international commitment. In the usual course, a life convict’s release can be advanced by remission earned under prison rules, and courts have recognised that earned remission for good conduct forms part of actual imprisonment. What the Court has, in effect, accepted here is that the 25-year figure is a special ceiling of a different character: it is not an ordinary fixed-term sentence to which remission attaches, but the outer limit of incarceration that India undertook to observe in order to bring Salem to justice. To let earned remission chip away at that ceiling would collapse the distinction between the two.
The ruling also settles, for the present, the timeline of Salem’s incarceration. On the computation the courts have accepted, the 25-year period runs from his 2005 arrest and concludes in November 2030, and remissions earned under the prison rules will not bring that date forward. The question of his release will therefore arise afresh as that date approaches, rather than now. For a case that has moved between an Indian trial, an extradition from Portugal on solemn assurances, and successive rounds of litigation over how those assurances translate into a release date, the judgment is a reminder that the terms on which an extradition is secured continue to govern the sentence long after the conviction is recorded.
Case Title: Abu Salem Abdul Qayoom Ansari v. State of Maharashtra [SLP (Crl) No. 12871/2026]
Bench: Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta
Date of Decision: September 10, 2026