Supreme Court allows Abu Salem to withdraw appeal on remission

The Supreme Court on Monday (February 16, 2026) allowed convicted gangster Abu Salem to withdraw his appeal for remission on the ground that he has completed a quarter of a century behind bars in India.

Salem, a convict in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, was extradited from Portugal on November 11, 2005, after a prolonged legal battle. He has argued that his sentence could not exceed 25 years as per the assurance given by India to Portugal for his extradition.

Disposing of his appeal, a Bench headed by Justice Vikram Nath left it open to Salem to approach the Bombay High Court for early listing of his pending case. The top court was hearing Salem’s plea against a July 2025 order by the Bombay High Court, which had prima facie found that he was yet to complete the 25-year period.

In the previous hearing, the court had asked Salem’s legal team, led by senior advocate Rishi Malhotra, to place on record the Maharashtra Prison Rules to see if he had any right to remission following conviction under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act.

In July 2022, the apex court, in a judgment, had held that “on the appellant [Salem] completing 25 years of his sentence, the Central Government is bound to advise the President for the exercise of his powers under Article 72 of the Constitution and to release the appellant in terms of the national commitments and the principles based on the comity of courts”.

The top court had, however, declined to calculate the 25-year timeline from September 18, 2002, when Salem was detained in Portugal for a different offence. “The criminal law of the land does not have extra-territorial application,” the court had reasoned.

Salem’s case was built around his argument that his life sentence was illegal, as the then Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister L. K. Advani had given a “solemn sovereign assurance” to a Portugal court that he would neither be sentenced to death nor serve more than 25 years in prison. However, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which prosecuted the case against the gangster, had maintained that Mr. Advani’s assurance was no guarantee.

In fact, an affidavit filed by the Home Ministry in 2022 had urged the court to focus on deciding Salem’s appeal against his conviction and life sentence in the 1993 Mumbai blasts case on its merits rather than take into consideration any “assurance” given by India to Portugal. In February 2015, a special TADA court had awarded life imprisonment to Salem in another case relating to the 1995 murder of Mumbai-based builder Pradeep Jain.