Supreme Court rejects Abu Salem's plea for premature release

The Supreme Court of India has dismissed a plea by gangster Abu Salem seeking premature release from custody. A bench comprising Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta upheld a previous Bombay High Court decision, ruling that Salem’s request was “premature” and “misconceived.”

Salem, a convict in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, was extradited from Portugal in November 2005. Under the extradition agreement, the Indian government assured Portugal that Salem would not face the death penalty and his imprisonment would not exceed 25 years.

Salem’s legal counsel, Senior Advocate Rishi Malhotra, argued that when combining the period spent as an undertrial with earned remissions for good behavior, Salem had already completed more than 25 years of imprisonment. However, the Court rejected this calculation, siding with the Bombay High Court’s assessment that the 25-year term began upon his extradition in November 2005 and will not expire until November 2030. The Court noted that earned remissions under prison rules cannot be used to automatically reduce the fixed 25-year cap mandated by the extradition terms.