Odisha SSRB again rejects Dara Singh’s premature release plea amid SC proceedings

Bhubaneswar, Sep 15 (IANS) The Odisha State Sentence Review Board (SSRB) has once again rejected the premature release plea of life convict Ravindra Kumar Pal alias Dara Singh, who is serving a sentence for the 1999 murder of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two minor sons, despite the matter being under consideration by the Supreme Court.

According to an official communication, the SSRB convened a special meeting on August 31, chaired by Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Hemant Sharma, in compliance with the Supreme Court’s August 19 direction to reconsider Singh’s remission plea. The convict is currently lodged in Kendujhar District Jail.

After deliberations, the Board noted that Singh’s requests for premature release had previously been rejected on November 24, 2016, June 24, 2019, December 24, 2020, January 12, 2022, and February 20, 2023. Among the reasons cited in the past were apprehensions that his release could trigger communal tensions in the region.

It noted that the District Authorities of Kendujhar in March 2025 had given a conditional recommendation stating that he may be allowed to go on premature release, imposing certain conditions to maintain social harmony.

Further, the SSRB also added that the district authorities reported (Vide Letter No. 2364 dated 28.O8.2026) that around 200-250 persons associated with Dara Sena gathered in front of the District Jail, Kendujhar, on August 15 in connection with the proposed release of the convict. The district authorities reportedly informed the board that provocative slogans were raised during the gathering. The SSRB noted that the report did not contain any specific recommendation and was inconclusive.

“In view of all the facts & circumstances, the Board is therefore not inclined to recommend his premature release at this stage,” said the SSRB.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court on September 8 pulled up the Odisha government over the delay in deciding Dara Singh’s remission plea and directed the State Sentence Review Board to take a decision before the next hearing on September 17. The apex court also warned that it could summon the competent State official if the matter remained undecided.

Singh, who is in jail for more than 26 years, was convicted for leading the mob that burned Australian missionary Graham Staines and his sons alive inside their station wagon at Manoharpur village in Odisha’s Keonjhar district in January 1999.

A trial court sentenced him to death, but the Orissa High Court commuted it to life imprisonment in 2005, holding that the case did not fall under the “rarest of rare” category. The Supreme Court upheld the life sentence in 2011.

–IANS

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