The Bombay High Court pulled up the Centre and the Maharashtra government for delaying the proceedings in the petition filed by underworld gangster Abu Salem. File
| Photo Credit: The Hindu
The Bombay High Court on Wednesday (April 2, 2025) pulled up the Centre and the Maharashtra government for delaying the proceedings in the petition filed by underworld gangster Abu Salem, who is seeking remission and premature release from Taloja Central Jail, where he is serving a life sentence. Salem is one of the main convicts in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts.
“We will grant you (the Central and State governments) very less time, and not weeks. The matter is kept on April 16, but both the State and Union must file your replies before the adjourned date. Show some urgency and be prepared to argue the matter on the next date,” a Division Bench of Justices Sarang Kotwal and Shriram Modak said. The Bench also criticised the Additional Solicitor General, who neither appeared for the hearing nor filed an affidavit.
The Maharashtra government’s Additional Public Prosecutor Mankunwar Deshmukh submitted to the Bench that the State was yet to file its affidavit.
“There is extreme urgency in this petition, yet you (the State of Maharashtra) are not showing any urgency in the case. You were given 21 days to file the affidavit, but you have not done it yet,” the court said.
Salem had challenged an order passed by the special Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act (TADA) court on December 10, 2024 that rejected his petition for premature release.
In February 2025, advocate Farhana Shah for Abu Salem said that he had already undergone the punishment of 25 years in prison in accordance with the procedure for an extradition treaty between India and Portugal, and hence, he should be granted remission in accordance with the law, and released from prison.
The petition mentioned the Supreme Court’s July 11, 2022 order, in line with India’s extradition treaty and the sovereign assurance given to Portugal that capped his imprisonment for 25 years.
“The Supreme Court has specifically clarified that 25 years shall include as the period undergone during trial period in prison parlance, and it is further clarified that the said 25 years shall also include all remissions,” the petition said.
Salem stated that he was extradited from Portugal on November 11, 2005 and was handed life sentences in two cases. He was also produced before the designated court under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) (TADA) Act in the 1993 Bombay blasts case.
The petition follows a previous rejection of Salem’s release by a special TADA court in Mumbai on December 10, 2024.
Salem’s petition claimed that he has spent approximately 11 years, nine months, and 26 days in custody as an undertrial from November 2005 to September 2017. As a convict, from February 2015 to December 2024, he spent up to nine years, 10 months, and four days. In addition, he claimed to have earned three years and 16 days in remission for maintaining good behaviour in the prison. He has also mentioned the one month that he spent in a Portuguese jail before being extradited to India. Calculating the timelines, the gangster has claimed that he has spent a total of 24 years and 9 months as a prisoner.
“The prison department follows a practice of sending a proposal of ‘Pre-Mature Release’ in the case of life convict prisoners wherein the State government, after considering various factors, concludes and sends the total number of years after which a life convict can be released,” the petition copy read.
Salem stated that the period of detention during trial, accounted in one case and not in another, which was tried at the same overlapping period, is a “mockery of justice”. “The scheming mindset of the prison administration is clearly evident with the aforesaid injustice meted out to the petitioner,” the petition read.
Published – April 03, 2025 12:26 am IST
