New Delhi: The Supreme Court Monday asked the state government to decide the remission plea of a repenting Ravindra Pal alias Dara Singh, who is serving life sentence for the murders of Australian missionary Graham Stuart Staines and his two minor sons in Keonjhar district in 1999. A bench of Justices Manoj Misra and KV Viswanathan asked advocate Shibashish Misra, appearing for the Odisha government, to take a decision in six weeks and apprise the court. The top court July 9, last year, had issued notice to the Odisha government on the plea for Singh’s premature release. Singh said he believes in the Karmic philosophy, and in order to cure the effects of bad Karma he has gained through his actions, he prayed for an opportunity to reform his character. In his plea, filed through advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain, Singh said he had spent over 24 years in incarceration and repented the consequences of his action taken in a fit of youthful rage.
Seeking court’s mercy, Singh assured to give back to the society through service-oriented actions. He sought a direction to the state government to consider his case for the relief in accordance with the guidelines for premature release of life convicts issued in 2022 in the three cases in which he was convicted. Singh, 61, said he had undergone more than the qualified period of sentence of 14 years under the April 19, 2022 policy and spent 24 years of actual imprisonment without remission. It is noteworthy that the petitioner has never been released on parole and even when his mother passed away, he could not perform her last rites as he was not allowed to be released on parole, he submitted. Singh said the appropriate authorities were under the legal obligation to consider his case for premature release under the Guideline for Premature Release 2022 passed by the Odisha government. The authorities, he said, failed to act in accordance with the rules due to which his right to liberty, as enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution, was jeopardised. The petitioner acknowledges and deeply regrets the transgressions perpetrated more than two decades ago. In the fervour of youth, fueled by impassioned reactions to the brutal history of India, the petitioner’s psyche momentarily lost restraint, his plea said. The plea went on, it is imperative for the court to scrutinise not merely the actions but the underlying intent, noting that there was no personal animosity harboured towards any victim.
A mob led by Singh attacked Staines and his two sons–11- year-old Philip and 8-year-old Timothy–while they slept in their station wagon and then set the vehicle on fire in Manoharpur village of 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 his death sentence to life imprisonment in 2005 and it was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2011. Mehendra Hembram, an accomplice of Dara Singh, is also serving life imprisonment in the case, while 11 other accused were acquitted by the high court due to lack of evidence.
