SC Raps Odisha Over Delay In Dara Singh Remission Plea
The court noted that the matter had been adjourned repeatedly to enable the authorities to decide Singh’s remission plea: Reports
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday pulled up the Odisha government for not deciding the remission plea of Ravindra Pal alias Dara Singh, who is serving a life sentence for the 1999 murder of Australian missionary Graham Stuart Staines and his two minor sons, and said it would take a decision if the state failed to do so.
"You take a decision whatever you want to. Otherwise, we will take our own. If you don't take a decision, we will," a two-judge bench of Justices Manoj Misra and Vijay Bishnoi told the counsel appearing for the State.
The apex court observed, "We can't tolerate this avoiding taking a decision.”
The court noted that the matter had been adjourned repeatedly to enable the authorities to decide Singh’s remission plea. He has been incarcerated for more than 26 years.
The court said that when the matter was adjourned on July 14, the State Sentence Review Board was in the process of taking a decision on Singh’s plea.
The state counsel placed before the court a letter from the Directorate of Prisons and Correctional Services stating that a report from the Keonjhar district jail was yet to be received.
"We are not informed about the decision of the Sentence Review Board," the top court said.
Posting the matter for September 2, the court directed the board to take a decision and apprise it.
"We are not concerned about how you are communicating, to what authority you are communicating. You just take a decision," it observed.
The top court said: "But don't try to dodge us by giving us the letter... How is it relevant? It is the board which has to take a decision."
Singh, 63, approached the Supreme Court in 2024 seeking premature release on the ground that he had served more than 24 years in jail and "repented" for his action taken in a fit of "youthful rage".
He said in his plea that he believes in karmic philosophy and prays for an opportunity to reform his character in order to cure the effects of bad karma he has gained through his actions.
A mob led by Singh attacked Staines and his sons, 11-year-old Philip and eight-year-old Timothy, while they slept in their station wagon and set the vehicle on fire at Manoharpur village in Keonjhar district on the intervening night of January 22-23, 1999.
Singh, the main accused in the triple murder, was convicted and sentenced to death by a CBI court in 2003.
The Orissa High Court commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment in 2005, which was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2011.