Mr Stillman hopes to carry on his charity work with deaf children

Ian Stillman, from Reading in Berkshire, who is also diabetic and has only one leg, was freed on compassionate grounds a year ago but thrown out of the country.

Now the 53-year-old wants Jack Straw to put pressure on the Indian authorities to let him return and carry on his work with deaf children.

The minister earlier personally intervened to have Mr Stillman's 10-year sentence reduced.

The father-of-two was found guilty of smuggling 20 kilos of cannabis in August 2000 after the drug was found in taxi he was sharing in the foothills of the Himalayas, but has always maintained his innocence.

He was refused an interpreter at his trial, where the authorities refused to believe he could not hear.

Mr Stillman had lived in India for 30 years, where he set up a charity for the deaf with his Indian wife Sue, despite losing a leg in a car crash.

Thousands of supporters signed a petition organised by Fair Trials Abroad calling for his release from prison in Shimla, north of Delhi, and he now hopes for an official pardon.