The Supreme Court on Tuesday (September 8, 2026) pulled up the Odisha government over the delay in deciding the remission plea of Graham Staines murder convict Dara Singh and cautioned that it would summon State officials if the Sentence Review Board failed to take a decision within 10 days.
The State’s counsel assured the Bench that a decision would be taken by the next hearing and that the Advocate General of Odisha would be present to assist the court. Posting Singh’s petition for hearing on September 17, a Bench of Justices Manoj Misra and Vijay Bishnoi said the State government could not continue to defer a decision.
During the hearing, counsel appearing for the Odisha government sought a four-week adjournment and said the State’s decision would be conveyed on the next date of hearing.
The court accordingly posted the case for hearing on September 17 and directed the State to inform it of the decision taken on the remission plea. Singh, whose official name is Rabindra Kumar Pal, was sentenced to death by a trial court in 2003 for the 1999 killings of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons, aged six and 10. The Orissa High Court upheld his conviction in 2005 but commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment, which was affirmed by the Supreme Court in 2011. In 2024, Singh approached the Supreme Court seeking premature release after spending more than two decades in prison. He has sought the benefit of Odisha’s 2022 premature release policy, citing his age, conduct in prison, period of incarceration and remorse for the crime. His plea for remission has previously been considered and rejected by five Sentence Review Boards, most recently in February 2024.
His petition states that he “deeply regrets” his actions, which he attributed to the “fervour of youth”.
