Introduction:

The Supreme Court has dismissed a plea filed by Abu Salem Abdul Qayoom Ansari, the gangster serving a life sentence in connection with the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, seeking his premature release on the ground that the period of his undertrial custody and earned prison remission should be counted towards the 25-year imprisonment ceiling arising from India’s extradition assurances to Portugal.

A Bench comprising Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta declined to accept Salem’s claim that his custody period, coupled with remission earned for good conduct, had already exhausted the 25-year period within which India had undertaken to keep him imprisoned following his extradition from Portugal. The case, Abu Salem Abdul Qayoom Ansari v. State of Maharashtra, arose from Salem’s challenge to the Bombay High Court’s decision rejecting his request for premature release.

The controversy has its roots in the circumstances under which Salem was extradited to India. On December 17, 2002, India furnished assurances to Portugal that Salem would not be sentenced to death and that his imprisonment would not exceed 25 years. The assurance became significant because Portuguese authorities had considered the nature of the punishment that could ultimately be imposed upon him before agreeing to his extradition.

After his extradition, Salem was tried and convicted in different cases. He was ultimately sentenced to life imprisonment in connection with the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts. The question before the courts was not simply whether Salem had been in custody for a particular number of years, but how the 25-year period flowing from India’s international assurance was required to be calculated.

The issue acquired further significance following the Supreme Court’s judgment of July 2022 concerning Salem’s sentence. While dealing with the legal consequences of the extradition arrangement, the Supreme Court recognised the binding nature of the assurance given to Portugal and held that, consistent with the assurance, Salem would have to be released upon completion of 25 years in jail.

Salem subsequently claimed that, when his entire period of custody and remission was properly calculated, he had effectively completed the period contemplated by the extradition assurance. He contended that he had remained in custody as an undertrial from November 2005 to September 2017 for approximately 11 years, 9 months and 26 days. He thereafter spent approximately 9 years, 10 months and 4 days as a convicted prisoner. In addition, he claimed remission earned for good conduct and the benefit of a period of custody in Portugal.

According to Salem, these periods, taken together, brought his imprisonment substantially close to or beyond the 25-year threshold. He therefore argued that his continued incarceration violated the constitutional guarantee under Article 21 and that the authorities ought to be directed to determine and communicate his exact date of release.

The Bombay High Court, however, rejected this approach in April 2025. It held that the 25-year period flowing from the extradition assurance could not be treated as an ordinary fixed-term sentence against which routine prison remission could be deducted. The High Court further held that the 25-year period had not yet expired and would conclude only in November 2030.

Aggrieved by that decision, Salem approached the Supreme Court by way of Special Leave Petition (Criminal) No. 12871 of 2026, Diary No. 41145 of 2026. The Supreme Court, after hearing the matter, ultimately dismissed the plea.

Arguments of the Parties:

Appearing for Abu Salem, Senior Advocate Rishi Malhotra principally argued that the authorities had adopted an incorrect method for computing the 25-year period. According to the petitioner, the period spent in custody before conviction could not simply be ignored while determining the duration of his imprisonment.

A central submission was that Salem’s period as an undertrial had already been directed to be set off against his sentence by the TADA Court. Counsel therefore contended that such custody was legally relevant to the computation of the sentence and could not be treated as though it had no bearing upon the 25-year period contemplated by the Supreme Court.

The petitioner further sought to distinguish between statutory remission and remission earned through good conduct. Counsel submitted that Salem was not seeking the benefit of remission under Section 432 of the Code of Criminal Procedure merely as a matter of executive clemency. Instead, the claim concerned remission earned by reason of good conduct, performance of assigned duties and other qualifying conduct during imprisonment.

According to Malhotra, earned remission forms part of the actual computation of imprisonment in appropriate circumstances. He relied upon the Supreme Court’s decision in Swamy Shraddananda @ Murali Manohar v. State of Karnataka, contending that the jurisprudence concerning actual imprisonment recognises the distinction between an ordinary life sentence and a sentence structured around a specified minimum period of incarceration.

The petitioner’s argument was that the 25-year period should therefore not be viewed as a rigid block of calendar years during which every day must necessarily be spent physically behind prison walls. If remission legally earned through good conduct is recognised as part of the computation of imprisonment, then such remission, according to Salem, ought to be given effect while determining whether the 25-year period had already been completed.

Counsel also pointed out that Salem had accumulated approximately three years and two months of remission on account of his good conduct. The argument was that such remission was not an unearned concession granted by the State but a benefit arising from the prisoner’s conduct and performance while in custody. Therefore, excluding it altogether from the calculation would effectively deprive him of a benefit that prison rules themselves recognised.

The petitioner also relied upon the treatment allegedly accorded to other convicts, arguing that persons similarly situated had been released after their earned remission was taken into consideration. The submission was that there should be consistency in the manner in which prison remission is treated and that Salem could not be subjected to a different standard merely because his sentence arose in the context of an extradition arrangement.

Malhotra further challenged the Bombay High Court’s reasoning that the 25-year period was not itself a fixed-term sentence and therefore could not be reduced through earned remission. According to the petitioner, what mattered was the actual legal effect of the Supreme Court’s 2022 judgment. Once the Supreme Court had recognised that Salem was required to be released after completing 25 years in prison, the computation of those years, it was argued, necessarily had to take into account periods that the law treated as imprisonment.

The petitioner also invoked Article 21 of the Constitution. His contention was that personal liberty could not be curtailed beyond the period legally permissible under the extradition assurance. If the 25-year period had already been completed after accounting for all legally recognised periods of custody and remission, continued detention would, according to Salem, amount to unlawful deprivation of liberty.

The State, on the other hand, opposed the petitioner’s attempt to use earned remission to bring forward the date of release. Its position was consistent with the reasoning adopted by the Bombay High Court: the 25-year ceiling was not an ordinary sentence imposed independently by a criminal court, but a consequence of the assurance given by India to Portugal in the course of Salem’s extradition.

The State’s case was therefore that the extradition assurance had to be understood in its proper legal and international context. The 25-year period represented the maximum period for which India had undertaken to keep Salem imprisoned. It was not equivalent to a 25-year determinate sentence carrying with it all the ordinary consequences of remission under prison rules.

The High Court had accepted this distinction and held that allowing earned remission to be deducted from the 25-year period would effectively transform the assurance into something materially different from what was intended. The State maintained that the assurance itself already operated as a substantial limitation upon a life sentence and that ordinary prison remission could not be used to create a second reduction in the period of incarceration.

The State’s position also found support in the manner in which the Supreme Court had dealt with the extradition issue in 2022. There was no indication, according to the respondents, that the Supreme Court intended prison remission to further reduce the 25-year period. The relevant period had to be calculated from the date recognised by the courts as the commencement of Salem’s imprisonment for this purpose.

The respondents consequently opposed the argument that Salem had already completed 25 years. The Bombay High Court had calculated the period from November 11, 2005, when Salem was first arrested, and concluded that the 25-year period would expire only in November 2030.

The State therefore contended that the petitioner’s computation improperly combined different legal concepts—undertrial custody, sentence set-off, earned remission and the extradition-based limitation—and treated them as interchangeable. According to the State, they could not be mechanically aggregated to reduce the 25-year ceiling.

Court’s Judgment:

The Supreme Court ultimately dismissed Abu Salem’s plea for premature release. The Bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta had, at the earlier hearing, indicated after hearing the arguments of Senior Advocate Rishi Malhotra that the petition was likely to be dismissed. The Court nevertheless reserved the matter and granted the parties an opportunity to place written submissions and supporting judgments on record before pronouncing its decision.

At the heart of the dispute was the legal character of the 25-year period arising from India’s assurance to Portugal. The petitioner’s case proceeded on the basis that this period should be calculated in the same manner as an ordinary sentence, with the benefit of earned remission being applied to determine the date on which the sentence stood completed.

The courts, however, treated the extradition assurance as occupying a different legal position. The 25-year ceiling did not originate as an independent sentence imposed by the trial court. Rather, it arose from an assurance given by the Government of India in the context of extradition proceedings and was subsequently recognised by the Supreme Court while dealing with Salem’s sentence.

This distinction was central to the rejection of the remission argument. The Bombay High Court had reasoned that the 25-year ceiling itself represented a limitation upon the otherwise applicable consequences of a life sentence. In other words, Salem was not serving an ordinary 25-year fixed-term sentence from which the State could further deduct earned remission. Instead, the 25-year period represented the outer limit of incarceration that India had undertaken to observe because of the extradition arrangement.

The High Court had therefore rejected the argument that remission under the Maharashtra prison rules could be used to bring the release date forward. It specifically referred to Rule 4(a), (b) and (c) of the Maharashtra Prisons (Remission System) Rules, 1962, as well as remission under Section 432 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, and held that these provisions could not be invoked to reduce the 25-year threshold.

The Supreme Court’s dismissal of the challenge leaves that approach undisturbed. The crucial point is that earned remission cannot automatically be treated as though it were part of the 25-year extradition-based ceiling in a manner that reduces the actual calendar period contemplated by the assurance.

The petitioner’s reliance on Swamy Shraddananda @ Murali Manohar v. State of Karnataka was directed towards establishing the legal significance of actual imprisonment and earned remission. That decision is important in the broader jurisprudence surrounding life imprisonment and the distinction between a conventional life sentence and a sentence requiring a specified period of actual incarceration. Salem sought to extend those principles to the special circumstances of his case.

The courts, however, found that the extradition assurance could not be approached solely through the prism of ordinary remission rules. The source and purpose of the 25-year limitation were materially different. The assurance was connected to India’s international commitment made in order to secure Salem’s extradition from Portugal, and its interpretation therefore had to remain faithful to that context.

The High Court had also observed that there was nothing in the Supreme Court’s 2022 judgment to indicate that earned remission under prison rules was intended to shorten the 25-year period. This was significant because Salem’s claim depended not merely on the existence of remission but on the proposition that such remission had to be deducted from the period guaranteed under the extradition assurance.

The absence of any such direction in the Supreme Court’s earlier judgment weakened the petitioner’s case. Had the 2022 judgment expressly provided that the 25-year period was to be computed after accounting for all earned remission, the position could have been different. Instead, the operative understanding was that Salem would have to be released after completing the 25-year period recognised in connection with the extradition assurance.

The calculation of the commencement date was another important aspect. The Bombay High Court found that Salem was first arrested on November 11, 2005. On a straightforward calculation from that date, the 25-year period would expire in November 2030. The petitioner’s attempt to bring the release date forward depended upon treating remission and other periods as deductions from this period.

The High Court rejected that method and considered the plea premature. The Supreme Court’s dismissal of the challenge means that Salem’s claim for immediate or premature release on the basis of earned remission does not succeed.

The decision also illustrates an important principle concerning the relationship between prison remission and special sentencing arrangements. Remission rules ordinarily operate within the framework of the sentence imposed upon a prisoner. But where a particular period of incarceration arises from an independent legal arrangement or assurance that places a ceiling on imprisonment, the applicability and effect of ordinary remission cannot be assumed without examining the terms and purpose of that arrangement.

In Salem’s case, the 25-year period cannot therefore be treated as merely a mathematical figure from which every form of custody credit and remission must necessarily be subtracted. The legal context in which the period came into existence is decisive.

The judgment is also significant from the perspective of extradition law. Extradition is not simply a process by which one country transfers an accused or convicted person to another jurisdiction. Assurances given by the requesting State may form an important part of the decision to surrender the individual. Once such an assurance becomes a condition governing the extradition, the subsequent treatment of the prisoner must remain consistent with it.

At the same time, the case demonstrates the limits of relying on general prison-remission principles in a highly specific extradition context. The petitioner’s contention that earned remission should have the same effect as it might have in an ordinary sentence was not accepted because the 25-year ceiling was itself a consequence of the international assurance.

The Article 21 argument also did not persuade the Court. While Article 21 undoubtedly protects an individual’s personal liberty against unlawful deprivation, the question in the present case was whether Salem had actually crossed the legally applicable period of incarceration. Since the courts concluded that the 25-year period had not yet been completed, continued custody could not, on that basis, be characterised as an unconstitutional extension of imprisonment.

The dismissal therefore does not mean that the extradition assurance has been disregarded. On the contrary, the reasoning proceeds on the basis that the assurance continues to govern Salem’s imprisonment. The disagreement was over the method of calculating the period within that assurance.

The outcome also clarifies that the benefit of remission cannot be presumed to operate identically in every sentencing context. Its effect depends upon the nature of the sentence, the source of the remission, the governing prison rules and, importantly in this case, the legal circumstances in which the period of imprisonment itself is prescribed.

Accordingly, the Supreme Court dismissed SLP (Criminal) No. 12871 of 2026, Diary No. 41145 of 2026, filed by Abu Salem Abdul Qayoom Ansari against the State of Maharashtra. His plea seeking premature release by counting earned remission and other periods towards the 25-year extradition-based ceiling was rejected.

The ruling effectively upholds the position that the 25-year period arising from India’s assurance to Portugal cannot be further reduced by ordinary earned remission merely because such remission is available under prison rules. On the computation accepted by the courts, the relevant 25-year period is to run until November 2030, subject to the legal position governing Salem’s custody.

The decision consequently marks another chapter in the long-running legal proceedings surrounding the extradition and incarceration of Abu Salem, while reaffirming that sentencing consequences arising from an extradition assurance must be interpreted in the context in which that assurance was given.