After 22 yrs, Delhi HC clears way for release of prisoner — from Dhaka jail

In the verdict issued Tuesday, Justice Sanjeev Narula directed the Delhi government to process and communicate the High Court’s order, and any related departmental orders needed, within two weeks to authorities in Bangladesh through the Home and Foreign ministries “for implementation in accordance with the bilateral arrangement”.

Asif’s journey through the legal systems of two countries began in August 2004, when he and five others were accused in the murder of a man and conspiring to commit dacoity at a residence in Delhi’s Mansarovar Park.

Asif pleaded not guilty. All the six, including Asif who is said to have been a minor at the time, were sentenced to rigorous life imprisonment under IPC section 396 in January 2010 — by then, Asif had spent six years in a Delhi jail as an undertrial. The Delhi High Court upheld the sentence in 2014 and the Supreme Court dismissed Asif’s appeal in 2019.

In 2021, Asif approached the Delhi High Court for parole, citing Covid. The Centre countered with two communications from Asif to prison authorities, in 2017 and 2018, when he purportedly sought repatriation to Bangladesh, where his parents reside, and permission to continue his sentence there.

However, Asif contended in the High Court that he had signed the repatriation papers offered by authorities at the time without knowing its contents and under the impression that they were parole documents. Prison records submitted in court showed he had studied only upto Class 5.

The repatriation request was subsequently okayed by the Centre in November 2021 under a bilateral agreement signed between Dhaka and Delhi in January 2010, regarding “Transfer of Sentenced Persons” between the two nations. On November 30-December 1, 2021, Asif was transferred from Tihar jail to Dhaka Central Jail.

The story took a pause before picking up again in January 2024, after authorities in Bangladesh recommended an early release for Asif based on his conduct in jail.

The Bangladesh High Commission requested Delhi to take up Asif’s matter “with relevant authorities and expedite a favourable decision on humanitarian ground for the upcoming jail Sentence Reviewing Board for consideration of his premature release”. Under the bilateral agreement, the decision had to be signed off by corresponding authorities in India.

In Delhi, prison authorities had recorded Asif’s conduct as satisfactory. And, the social investigation report by Delhi’s Department of Social Welfare recommended his release, keeping in view his “reformative attitude” and bone age report, which had pegged his age at the time of the crime at around 10-13 years. The report underlined that Asif had trained in tailoring and electrical work while in prison, and planned to pursue tailoring for a living.

But the Sentence Review Board (SRB) in Delhi refused to take these into consideration.

It rejected the request for early release “unanimously” in July 2025 — after rejecting it once earlier in 2024. It stated that “considering the gravity, perversity and nature of the crime, non-recommendation by Police authority, age of the convict etc., it is felt by the Board that possibility of committing crime by such a convict cannot be ruled out”. It concluded that recommending for his early release “may not be in the interest of the society at large”.

Justice Narula, while ordering Asif’s release, held “the SRB’s refusal is therefore unsustainable as an arbitrary exercise of discretion, resting on conjecture and the gravity of the offence alone, contrary to the policy and the Rules”.

“The formulation that ‘propensity to commit similar crime again… cannot be ruled out’ is a bare assertion. It is unsupported by any antecedents, any adverse prison material, any adverse parole or furlough history (none exists), or any behavioural warning signs recorded by prison authorities,” Justice Narula said.

“The assessment of future risk, if it is to be adverse, must be reasoned and evidence-linked. A conclusion stated as a possibility is not a reason… The SRB has also treated ‘non-recommendation by police authority’ as a weighty adverse factor, without disclosing what, in substance, the police apprehension is, and without undertaking the balancing exercise demanded by the Rules,” the judge said.

Asif’s counsel Sarthak Maggon had argued that with Bangladesh raising no objection to his early release, India should grant him amnesty — and that with Asif being released in Dhaka, the question of any threat to Indian society becomes a peripheral issue.

Asif is the only convict in the case who is still in jail. Of the five others in Delhi, three never surrendered back in Tihar after being released on interim bail or parole, and two others were released. After having spent 22 years behind bars, Asif is now expected to walk out of Dhaka Central jail.