New Delhi, Sept. 17 -- The Supreme Court on Thursday granted two weeks to murder convict Rabindra Kumar Pal alias Dara Singh to challenge the Odisha government's decision rejecting his plea for premature release from life imprisonment in the 1999 murder of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two minor sons.

A bench of Justices Manoj Misra and Vijay Bishnoi was informed that the State Sentence Review Board had rejected Pal's plea after considering the facts and circumstances of the case, including the gravity of the offence.

The matter has been posted after three weeks.

Pal has been in custody for nearly 27 years and has served more than 26 years of his life sentence.

The Odisha government's decision was taken by the State Sen...