The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear separate pleas filed by the CBI and the Uttar Pradesh government challenging the Allahabad High Court’s verdict acquitting Surendra Koli in the high-profile 2006 Nithari serial killings case.
A bench of Justices B.R. Gavai, K.V. Viswanathan, and N. Kotiswar Singh issued a notice and sought a response from Surendra Koli on the petitions, tagging them with similar pleas already pending before the apex court.
The top court had previously sought a response from Koli on July 8 regarding separate pleas filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against the high court’s October 16 verdict last year. In May, the apex court agreed to hear a plea filed by the father of one of the victims challenging the high court’s acquittal of Koli.
In this case, Moninder Singh Pandher was acquitted by the sessions court while Koli was sentenced to death on September 28, 2010.
The high court had overturned the convictions of Koli and Pandher in the Nithari serial killings case, where they were facing the death penalty. It found that the prosecution had failed to prove the guilt “beyond reasonable doubt” and criticized the investigation as being “botched up.”
The high court reversed the death sentences given to Koli in 12 cases and Pandher in two cases, noting that the prosecution had not met the burden of proof required for a conviction based on circumstantial evidence and that the investigation had betrayed public trust.
Pandher and Koli were charged with rape and murder in the killings that shocked the nation with details of sexual assault, brutal murder, and possible cannibalism. The high court had granted relief to Koli and Pandher from the death sentence imposed by a CBI court in Ghaziabad.
In total, 19 cases were filed against Pandher and Koli in 2007. The CBI filed closure reports in three cases due to insufficient evidence, while Koli was acquitted in three cases and had his death sentence commuted to life in one case.
The case gained notoriety after the discovery of skeletal remains of eight children from a drain behind Pandher’s house in Nithari, Noida, on December 29, 2006. Further searches revealed more remains, mostly of poor children and young women who had gone missing from the area. The CBI took over the investigation within ten days, leading to the recovery of additional remains.
