The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice in the petition filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) challenging the Allahabad High Court's verdict acquitting Surendra Koli in the 2006 Nithari serial killings case.
A bench of Justices B R Gavai and K V Viswanathan agreed to hear the case and sought a response from Koli on a petition filed by the CBI against the high court's verdict.
Previously, the top court had in May agreed to hear a petition filed by the father of one of the victims challenging the high court's order. The bench said the pleas filed by the CBI would come up for hearing along with this petition. Pappu Lal, father of one of the victim girls moved an instant appeal to the Supreme Court against their acquittal.
The Allahabad High Court acquitted Pandher and his domestic help Surendra Koli in some of the cases connected to the Nithari killings and overturned the death penalty awarded to them by a trial court.
The high court acquitted Koli in 12 cases and Pandher in 2 cases in which they were convicted for murder and awarded death penalty by the trial court in these cases. This led to the present instant appeal before the apex court.
As per the plea in the top court, the High Court wrongly discarded medical evidence and judicial confession of the accused as recorded by a Magistrate. The appeal further contends that even though the cases against Pandher and Koli were based on circumstantial evidence, their guilt was proven beyond doubt.
In December 2006, the news of Nithari murders shook the nation, when skeletons were discovered in a drain near a house in Nithari village in Noida. Moninder Singh Pandher was the owner of the house, and Koli worked there as a domestic help.
The case was taken over by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and eventually multiple cases were filed against the duo.
Surendra Koli was accused for murder, abduction, rape, and the destruction of evidence, while Moninder Singh Pandher was charged in a immoral trafficking case.
Koli was accused of committing multiple rapes and murders of several girls and was sentenced to death in more than 10 cases.
In 2017, a special CBI court held Pandher and Koli guilty for killing a 20-year-old woman and sentenced them to death.
In 2009, the Allahabad High Court held Koli guilty but acquitted Pandher due to lack of evidence for the murder and rape of another victim, 14-year-old girl. Koli appealed against this verdict in the Supreme Court in 2011. The top court junked this plea.
In 2014, the apex court again dismissed a review petition filed by Koli.
In January 2015, the Allahabad High Court commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment on account of an inordinate delay in decision on Koli's mercy petition.
Incidentally, CJI DY Chandrachud who was then the Chief Justice of high court had delivered the decision of commuting the death penalty to life sentence.