Bhubaneswar, September 8:The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the Odisha government to decide on the remission plea of Ravindra Pal alias Dara Singh, who is serving a life sentence for the 1999 killing of Australian missionary Graham Stuart Staines and his two sons.
A bench of Justices Manoj Misra and Vijay Bishnoi expressed displeasure over the delay, saying the matter could not be kept pending indefinitely. The court directed the state to inform it of the decision by the next hearing onSeptember 17, warning that an officer could be summoned if the government failed to act.
Dara Singh, 63, has spent more than 26 years in prison. He approached the Supreme Court in 2024 seeking premature release under the Odisha government’s 2022 guidelines, claiming he had completed the required period of imprisonment and had repented for his actions.
Dara Singh was convicted and sentenced to death in 2003 for the January 1999 attack in which Staines and his sons, Philip and Timothy, were burnt alive while sleeping in a vehicle in Manoharpur, Keonjhar. The Orissa High Court commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment in 2005, a decision upheld by the Supreme Court in 2011.
The Apex court had earlier directed the Odisha State Sentence Review Board to decide Singh’s remission plea.
