Haren Pandya murder case: HC gives 6 mths to decide on Asghar Ali’s remission

Ahmedabad: Gujarat High Court has ordered state govt to take a decision within six months on a remission application filed by the sharpshooter from Hyderabad in the Haren Pandya murder case Mohammed Asghar Ali.Life-term convict Asghar Ali moved HC and submitted that state govt was not taking any decision on his application.

His counsel contended that Ali urged the govt to release him because he has completed 14 years in prison, and claimed his conduct in jail was also good.Justice M R Mengdey in the order last week stated: “The concerned authority shall take an appropriate decision, in accordance with law, on the application submitted by the petitioner for grant of remission, as expeditiously as possible, preferably within a period of 6 months from the date of receipt of the order.”Asghar Ali was arrested a few days after the former home minister Haren Pandya’s murder, which took place on March 26, 2006.

A CBI probe revealed that Pandya was killed as part of the reprisal for the 2002 post-Godhra communal violence in Gujarat.Along with Ali, 17 others were charged under IPC and the Prevention of Terrorism Act (Pota).

They were put on trial for the murder as well as for attempting to take the life of a VHP worker, Jagdish Tiwari, which took place ahead of Pandya’s murder.

A CBI court considered both the offences as part of a single conspiracy and conducted a trial against 18 persons.In 2007, the CBI court convicted 12 persons and awarded life term to Asghar Ali for Pandya’s murder.

In 2011, HC acquitted all the murder accused but upheld their conviction in attempt to murder Tiwari.

It reduced the punishment for all the convicts to seven years.However, in 2019, the Supreme Court overturned the HC order and convicted all 12 accused on a CBI appeal and ordered them to surrender to serve life imprisonment.In 2025, Asghar Ali requested the govt for premature release, but when the govt did not take any decision, he approached the HC.

Before the court, the govt submitted that the application is under consideration and it has received an opinion of the advisory committee as well.

It would place the case before the authority concerned in the near future.Similarly, a Lashkar-e-Taiba operative, Shahnawaz Bhatti, who was caught from the Kachchh border in 2001 with 22 kg of RDX and sentenced to life imprisonment, also sought the benefit of remission, contending that he has spent over two decades in prison without any parole.

He complained that the authorities were not deciding on his plea for nearly two years.

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