Bhubaneswar: The Supreme Court on Tuesday warned that it would summon the concerned officer if no decision is taken on the remission plea of Rabindra Kumar Pal alias Dara Singh, convicted in the 1999 murder of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two minor sons by Sept 17.A bench of Justices Manoj Misra and Vijay Bishnoi expressed displeasure after the Odisha govt sought a 4-week adjournment, citing the illness of its advocate-on-record (AoR). “Decide the matter, otherwise we will summon the secretary or whoever is the competent authority,” the bench said, noting that its Aug 19 direction to consider the plea remained uncomplied with.The court observed that the case had been adjourned repeatedly to enable the state to take a decision on Dara’s remission application. Justice Bishnoi remarked, “You can’t go on like this,” while Justice Misra sought to know who was responsible for taking the final decision.The 6-member State Sentence Review Board (SSRB), which examines remission pleas in Odisha, is headed by the home secretary, while the director general of prisons serves as its member secretary.On Aug 19, the apex court had noted that Dara had spent more than 26 years in prison and directed the state to take a decision on his plea and apprise it by Sept 2. The hearing could not be taken up on Sept 2 and was adjourned for Tuesday.On Jan 22, 1999, an alleged mob led by Bajrang Dal activist Dara Singh attacked Australian missionary Graham Staines, 58, and his sons Philip, 10, and Timothy, 6, while they were sleeping in a station wagon near a church at Manoharpur village in Keonjhar district. The vehicle was set ablaze, killing all three and triggering nationwide outrage.Dara, a native of Uttar Pradesh’s Auraiya district, is currently lodged in Keonjhar jail. Under Odisha’s 2022 premature release policy, prisoners whose death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment become eligible for consideration of early release after completing 25 years in jail, subject to recommendations by the SSRB and approval of the state govt.His death sentence, awarded by a trial court in 2003, was commuted to life imprisonment by the Orissa high court in 2005, a decision later upheld by the Supreme Court in 2011. In the Staines murder case, the trial court convicted Dara Singh and 12 others.
