Graham Staines murder: SC directs Odisha sentence review board to decide on murder convict Dara Singh's premature release plea

New Delhi: In a significant development in the 1999 Graham Staines murder case, the Supreme Court has directed the Odisha State Sentence Review Board to decide on the plea of murder convict Rabindra Kumar Pal alias Dara Singh seeking premature release from his life sentence.

A bench of Justices Manoj Misra and Vijay Bishnoi took exception to the delay in deciding Pal's plea, who has undergone more than 26 years of his life sentence.

"List this matter on September 2, 2026. Sentence Review Board shall take a decision and apprise us. Take a decision; otherwise, we will. We cannot tolerate this; no decision," the Court said.


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The Court was informed that when the matter was last adjourned, the Sentence Review Board was in the process of considering Pal's plea. However, no decision of the Board was placed before the Court, it noted.

The counsel appearing for the respondent State of Odisha placed before the Court a letter from the Directorate of Prisons stating that a report from the District Jail, Kendujhar, was still awaited.

The Court directed the Sentence Review Board to take a decision and apprise it of the outcome by the next hearing on September 2.

Pal, popularly known as Dara Singh, was convicted for the January 1999 killing of Australian Christian missionary Graham Staines and his two minor sons, Philip and Timothy. The three were burnt alive inside their station wagon at Manoharpur village in Odisha.

A trial court sentenced Pal to death in 2003. The Orissa High Court commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment in 2005.

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In 2011, the Supreme Court upheld his life sentence, holding that the case did not fall within the "rarest of rare" category warranting capital punishment.

Pal was also convicted separately for the murders of Muslim trader Shaikh Rehman and Christian priest Arul Das in Odisha.