Odisha refuses early release for Dara Singh before a Supreme Court hearing

Odisha’s State Sentence Review Board has declined to recommend the premature release of Rabindra Kumar Pal, known as Dara Singh, who is serving a life sentence for the January 1999 murder of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his sons Philip, 10, and Timothy, 6. The board met on 31 August. Its decision became public on Tuesday, two days before the Supreme Court is due to hear Singh’s plea on 17 September.

The court had told the state to take a clear stand after the file was deferred more than once. Prison officials and the authorities at Kendujhar jail had recommended release on the ground of good behaviour. As of 28 August, Singh had spent 26 years, six months and 27 days in custody. He is 67. He comes from Kodar village in what is now Auraiya district of Uttar Pradesh and had taught Hindi at Janta High School in Mallipur, under Patna block of Kendujhar, before the crime.

The board’s minutes give a different reason for refusal. On 15 August a gathering of about 200 to 250 people linked to Dara Sena, a group that campaigns for his release, assembled outside the district jail. Officials said provocative slogans were raised. The district report, the board wrote, lacked a specific recommendation and was inconclusive. In view of the facts and circumstances, the board was “not inclined to recommend his premature release at this stage.” Members also recorded a fear of communal disturbance if he walked out.

The crime itself is not in dispute in this proceeding. On the night of 22 January 1999 a mob of around 50 people attacked a camp at Manoharpur in Keonjhar district and set fire to the station wagon in which Staines and the two boys were sleeping. A Bhubaneswar sessions court sentenced Singh to death. The sentence was later commuted to life. He has sought remission on age and time served. In a 2024 filing he argued that a prisoner over 60 who has spent more than 24 years inside should be considered.

Indian remission practice sits at the junction of prison conduct, the original offence, and local order. Good-behaviour notes from a jail do not bind a sentence review board. The board can weigh the chance of unrest. That is what happened here. The August rally gave the members a recent, local event to point to. Whether that event should outweigh 26 years in custody is the question the Supreme Court will be asked to examine on Wednesday.

Staines worked among people with leprosy in the district. The killings drew condemnation in India and abroad and became a marker in debates on religious violence in Odisha. Those debates still shape the politics around the file. Dara Sena treats Singh as a cause. District officials treat a crowd at the jail gate as a warning. The board chose the warning.

The 17 September hearing will not retry the murder. It will test whether Odisha has now done what the court asked: take a decision, record reasons, and put them on paper. The reasons are public. They rest on public order rather than on a finding that Singh remains a danger in the ordinary criminal sense. That distinction will be the core of the next argument in Delhi.