Supreme Court Seeks Odisha’s Response on Graham Staines Murder Convict’s Remission Plea

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued a notice to the Odisha government seeking its response to a petition filed by Dara Singh, convicted in the 1999 murder of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons.

Dara Singh, also known as Rabindra Kumar Pal, is serving a life sentence in Baripada jail.

Justices Hrishikesh Roy and SVN Bhatti presided over the hearing where Singh’s lawyer, Vishnu Shankar Jain, argued that his client has spent over 24 years in prison, citing Odisha’s remission rules which allow consideration for premature release after 25 years.

Jain referenced a Supreme Court judgment regarding the early release of Rajiv Gandhi’s assassins and quoted Justice VR Krishna Iyer’s observation that ‘every saint has a past, every sinner has a future.’

In 2011, the Supreme Court upheld Singh’s life sentence, overturning a lower court’s death penalty ruling, affirming the Orissa High Court’s decision to commute the sentence.

Graham Staines, who worked with leprosy patients in Manoharpur, Keonjhar district, was killed along with his sons when a mob set their vehicle ablaze while they slept inside. Despite accusations by some Hindu groups of forced conversions, Staines’ work was widely respected.