The Odisha government had rejected a plea of Hindutva activist Dara Singh for premature release from prison in the murder of Australian missionary Graham Staines

NEW DELHI: Supreme Court Thursday allowed Dara Singh to amend his petition to challenge Odisha govt’s rejection of his remission plea after the state informed the court about its decision. It agreed to hear his amended petition after three weeks.A bench of Justices Manoj Misra and Vijay Bishnoi allowed Singh’s lawyer to challenge the order passed by Odisha by amending the petition within two weeks.Singh, incarcerated for 26 years, was sentenced to death by a trial court in 2003 for the murder of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons. In 2005, Odisha HC commuted the death penalty to life imprisonment, which was confirmed by SC in 2011. Singh was part of a mob which on Jan 22, 1999, had set fire to Staines’s vehicle in which he and his sons, Philip (10) and Timothy (6), were sleeping.

SC had pulled up Odisha govt over its indecisiveness on taking a call on the remission plea and had set it a deadline of Sept 17. “You cannot keep it lingering like this. Accept or reject it. You cannot avoid taking decision,” the bench had said.