Bhubaneswar/New Delhi: Days after the State Sentence Review Board (SSRB) recommended for release of Ravindra Pal alias Dara Singh, currently serving life imprisonment for the killings of Australian missionary Graham Stuart Staines and his two minor sons in 1999, Supreme Court Tuesday directed the state government to release Singh on or before August 15, 2026.

The SSRB recommended his release on ground of ‘good behaviour’. He was among the 56 life convicts, whose cases were taken up for premature release by SSRB in its July 6 meeting. His release was recommended by the Director General of Police (Prisons) after a proposal from Kendujhar district authorities. The board had previously deferred Singh’s application to seek a fresh report from authorities in his home district of Auraiya in Uttar Pradesh.

Speaking to reporters, Singh’s counsel AP Singh confirmed that the apex court has ordered the Read government to release Singh from prison on or before Independence Day. However, the detailed court order is yet to be made public.

Singh had approached the Supreme Court seeking remission under a more liberal policy, citing his long incarceration, to ensure his premature release from Kendujhar district jail, while he has already spent over 26 years in different jails after he, along with several others, set afire a van in which Staines and his sons – Philip, 11, and Timothy,7, – were sleeping at Manoharpur, where they had gone to attend a jungle camp and an annual gathering of Christians in the area, on the night of January 22, 1999. He further expressed remorse for his actions, attributing them to a fit of “youthful rage”.

A native of Kokar village in Auriya district of UP, he has been in jail since his arrest in 2000. He was first sentenced to death by a CBI court in Bhubaneswar in 2003, which was commuted to life sentence in May 2005 by Orissa High Court. The Supreme Court upheld the life sentence in January 2011.

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