New Delhi, Sept. 8 -- The Supreme Court has issued a warning to the Odisha State Sentence Review Board to decide promptly on a plea filed by murder convict Rabindra Kumar Pal aka Dara Singh seeking premature release from his life sentence in the 1999 murder of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two minor sons.

A bench of Justices Manoj Misra and Vijay Bishnoi demurred on the respondent State of Orissa's conduct in unnecessarily delaying the decision of the murder convict Pal's plea and seeking adjournment in the case.

The Court refused to adjourn the case today and said that if the State authority fails to decide the plea by September 17, it will summon the State Chief Secretary or whoever is the appropriate authority to Court...