The Supreme Court has rejected a plea by 1993 Mumbai serial blasts convict Abu Salem Abdul Qayoom Ansari seeking release on the ground that he had completed the maximum 25-year period of imprisonment contemplated under the sovereign assurance given by India to Portugal at the time of his extradition.

The Bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta held that the assurance limiting Salem’s imprisonment to 25 years did not convert the life sentences imposed on him into a fixed-term sentence. Consequently, jail-earned remission could not be added notionally to his actual incarceration to advance the date of his release.

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The Court also rejected Salem’s method of calculating his period of custody, observing that it counted the same period of incarceration twice. It upheld the Bombay High Court’s April 15, 2026 judgment dismissing his petition for habeas corpus and mandamus.

The Union Government had sought Salem’s extradition from Portugal in connection with criminal cases pending against him in India. On December 17, 2002, the then Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani conveyed a sovereign assurance to Portugal that Salem would neither be subjected to the death penalty nor imprisoned for more than 25 years after his extradition.

Acting on the assurance, Portugal’s Ministry of Justice permitted his extradition on March 29, 2003. His custody was handed over to the Indian authorities on November 10, 2005, and he was extradited to India the following day.

Salem was subsequently convicted in two separate cases by the Special TADA Court in Mumbai. On February 25, 2015, he was sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for life in TADA Case No. 1 of 2006. He was later convicted in BBC Case No. 1 of 1993 on September 7, 2017 and again sentenced to rigorous life imprisonment.

The TADA Court directed that the two life sentences would run concurrently.

In July 2022, the Supreme Court disposed of Salem’s appeals arising from the two convictions and held that his detention, for the purpose of calculating the 25-year period, would commence from October 12, 2005.

The Court rejected his contention that the calculation should begin from September 18, 2002. It also refused to count the time spent by him in custody in another country in connection with separate proceedings towards the sentence imposed in India.

However, the Court directed that after Salem completes 25 years, the Central Government must act upon its sovereign commitment to Portugal. It said the government could either advise the President to exercise the constitutional power under Article 72 or exercise its own powers of remission or commutation under Sections 432 and 433 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

The necessary exercise was directed to be undertaken within one month of Salem completing 25 years of imprisonment.

Before the Supreme Court in the latest proceedings, Salem claimed that as of June 30, 2026, he had completed 26 years, nine months and 22 days of incarceration.

His calculation consisted of three components. He counted the period from November 11, 2005, when he was arrested after extradition, until September 7, 2017, when he was convicted in the Mumbai blasts case, as undertrial custody. This period was calculated as 11 years, nine months and 26 days.

He separately counted his post-conviction custody from February 25, 2015, the date of his conviction in the earlier TADA case, until June 30, 2026. This was calculated as another 11 years, four months and four days.

Salem also sought the benefit of three years, six months and two days of jail-earned remission.

Rejecting Salem’s computation, the Supreme Court found that it was based on inconsistent starting points and resulted in an overlap between February 25, 2015 and September 7, 2017.

The Court noted that Salem treated this period as undertrial custody in one case while simultaneously treating it as post-conviction custody in the other case.

Since the two sentences were ordered to run concurrently, they operated simultaneously, the Bench explained. The same period of incarceration could not, therefore, be notionally counted twice to determine whether the sentence had been completed.

“The appellant cannot treat the period preceding the later conviction as undertrial custody for one sentence while simultaneously treating the same period, from the date of the earlier conviction, as post-conviction custody for the other sentence and thereby secure a double benefit,” the Court observed.

The distinction between undertrial custody and post-conviction custody could not justify an overlapping calculation. Salem’s method, the Court said, artificially enlarged his custody period by counting overlapping periods more than once.

The Supreme Court clarified that Salem was entitled to the benefit of India’s sovereign assurance to Portugal. The dispute was only whether he had legally completed the stipulated period of 25 years.

The assurance fixed the outer limit of his imprisonment but did not allow him to count the same custody period twice or calculate the sentence in a manner contrary to the Supreme Court’s 2022 directions.

The Bench also referred to the gravity of the offences for which Salem had been convicted. It observed that the offences were not directed merely against individual victims but formed part of acts intended to destabilise the country and undermine its economic progress by targeting Mumbai, India’s financial capital.

The larger national and economic consequences of those offences could not be ignored while considering Salem’s claim for release, the Court said.

The Supreme Court rejected the argument that the 2022 judgment had effectively restricted Salem’s life imprisonment to 25 years.

It explained that the sovereign assurance was an executive act given in the context of extradition, whereas the life sentences were imposed by courts exercising judicial power. The earlier judgment respected this constitutional separation of powers.

The 2022 decision did not commute, modify or restrict the sentences imposed by the TADA Court. It only recognised the sovereign assurance and specified what the Executive would be required to do once Salem completed 25 years of actual incarceration.

“The judgment did not alter the sentence; it only delineated the consequence of the sovereign assurance upon the appellant completing the stipulated period of incarceration,” the Bench observed.

Salem, therefore, continued to serve life imprisonment. The condition requiring consideration of his release after 25 years could not be treated as if a court had sentenced him to a fixed term of 25 years.

Jail-Earned Remission Cannot Advance Release

Salem relied on Jail Register No. 6 and an affidavit filed by the Additional Director General of Police and Inspector General of Prisons and Correctional Services. According to him, these records showed that he had earned remission of three years, six months and two days.

The Supreme Court, however, held that such remission could not be added to the period of actual custody for calculating the 25-year limit under the sovereign assurance.

Since Salem’s punishment remained life imprisonment and not a fixed-term sentence, the earned remission could not be proportionately used to bring forward the date on which the 25-year period would be completed.

The Court said that permitting such a calculation would give Salem a benefit beyond the protection already available under the sovereign assurance.

It also referred to the State’s calculation chart, under which Salem’s case had been placed in the category of prisoners sentenced to 50 years for the purpose of premature release under the Maharashtra Prison Manual, 1979. The chart mentioned January 31, 2046 as his probable release date after accounting for set-off and remission.

The remission reflected in the prison records had been calculated in the context of his life sentence and could not be used to accelerate the separate 25-year period contemplated under the extradition assurance, the Court held.

Earlier Remission Decisions Distinguished

Salem relied on the Bombay High Court’s Full Bench ruling in Yovehel v. State of Maharashtra and the Supreme Court decisions in Union of India v. V. Sriharan alias Murugan and Swamy Shraddananda v. State of Karnataka.

The Bench found those authorities inapplicable because none involved a sovereign assurance given by the Executive to a foreign government in extradition proceedings.

The Court reiterated that the ratio of a precedent must be understood in light of its material facts and the legal issue decided. A previous ruling could not be applied after separating it from the factual and statutory context in which it was delivered.

Finding no infirmity in the Bombay High Court’s decision, the Supreme Court dismissed Salem’s appeal in limine and disposed of all pending applications.

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