Supreme Court: Abu Salem's 25-year extradition assurance does not turn his life sentence into a fixed term

The Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by Abu Salem Abdul Qayoom Ansari, who sought release on the ground that he had completed 25 years in custody once remission was counted. India had secured his extradition from Portugal after giving a sovereign assurance on 17 December 2002 that he would face neither the death penalty nor imprisonment exceeding 25 years. He was extradited in November 2005 and later sentenced to life imprisonment by the TADA Court in two cases. In a 2022 judgment the Supreme Court had fixed 12 October 2005 as the start of his detention, and said that on completion of 25 years the Central Government could advise the President under Article 72 or consider remission or commutation, honouring the national commitment.

The Bombay High Court refused his habeas corpus petition. The Supreme Court held that his sentence remains life imprisonment. The 25-year limit flows from the sovereign assurance and does not convert the sentence into a fixed term of 25 years, so jail-earned remission cannot be added notionally to bring the release date forward. It found reliance on Swamy Shraddananda and V. Sriharan misplaced, since none involved an extradition assurance, and restated that a precedent's ratio must be read in the context of its own facts.