New Delhi: The Supreme Court has granted murder convict Rabindra Kumar Pal alias Dara Singh two weeks to challenge the Odisha government’s decision of rejecting his plea for early release in the murder of Australian missionary Graham Stuart Staines and his two minor sons in 1999.
The order was passed on Thursday after the Odisha government informed the apex court that it has rejected a remission plea of Dara Singh, who is serving a life sentence for the murder of Graham Stuart Staines and his sons.
A bench of Justices Manoj Misra and Vijay Bishnoi passed the order.
The Odisha government informed the court that Singh’s plea for premature release has been rejected by the Odisha Sentence Review Board after considering all relevant facts and circumstances, including the gravity of the offence.
“You take whatever grounds you want to take to challenge it. Amend your petition and then argue,” a bench told the counsel appearing for Singh.
The bench noted that a copy of the order rejecting the remission plea has been supplied to Singh’s counsel.
“The counsel representing the petitioner (Singh) prays for and is allowed two weeks to file an appropriate amendment application,” the bench said, while posting the matter after three weeks. Hearing the matter earlier, the top court had pulled up the Odisha government for not taking a decision on Singh’s remission plea.
The Supreme Court has listed the matter for hearing after three weeks.
Singh (67) is serving a life sentence for the killing of Graham Staines (58) and his sons Philip (10) and Timothy (6). The three were burnt alive while sleeping inside a station wagon at Manoharpur village in Odisha’s Keonjhar district on January 22, 1999.
The Odisha Sentence Review Board rejected Singh’s plea, observing that his release could have societal ramifications and potentially lead to communal disturbances.
Singh had approached the Supreme Court seeking premature release after spending more than 26 years in prison. The top court had earlier directed the Odisha State Sentence Review Board to take a decision on his plea.
A trial court sentenced Singh to death in 2003. The Orissa High Court commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment in 2005.
In 2011, the Supreme Court upheld the life sentence, holding that the case did not fall within the category of “rarest of rare” cases warranting capital punishment.
