Nithari killings: SC to hear pleas of CBI, UP govt separately against Surendra Koli's acquittal
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday decided to hear separately the respective appeals filed by the CBI and the Uttar Pradesh government challenging the Allahabad High Court's verdict acquitting Surendra Koli in the 2006 horrific Nithari killings in Noida, Uttar Pradesh.
A three-judge bench of the top court, led by Justice B R Gavai, K V Viswanathan, and N Kotiswar Singh issued a notice and sought a response from the convict, Koli on the appeals filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Uttar Pradesh government.
The apex court also tagged the appeals of the CBI and UP government, with the pleas already being filed by one of the victim's father and pending for hearing in them.
In July 2017, the special CBI court judge Pawan Kumar Tiwari, in his verdict, held Moninder Singh Pandher and Koli guilty for killing of a 20- year-old woman, Pinki Sarkar, and sentenced them to death for their brutal and diabolical crime.
The Allahabad HC later, in January, 2015, commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment on account of an inordinate delay in deciding on Koli's mercy petition. The HC verdict was pronounced by a two-judge bench of then High Court Chief Justice (now Chief Justice of India) D Y Chandrachud and Justice P K S Baghel (Now retired) on a petition filed by the People's Union for Democratic Rights.
But, the Allahabad High Court had in October last year, however, acquitted Moninder Singh Pandher and his domestic help Surendra Koli in some of the cases concerning the Nithari killings and overturned the death penalty imposed on them by the trial court. The HC had acquitted Koli in 12 cases and Pandher in 2 cases, where they were earlier held guilty for murder and awarded the death penalty by the trial court in these cases.
While acquitting Pandher and Koli, the HC censured the investigating agencies, including the UP Police and CBI, for a very casual probe into the case.
On the last date of hearing on July 8, Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta, a senior law officer representing the CBI, said that Koli was a serial killer who used to lure young girls and kill them. "The killings were gruesome," he said and told the bench that there were accusations of cannibalism. The trial court had awarded the death penalty to Koli, but the same had been reversed by the Allahabad High Court last year.
In a similar development, the Supreme Court on May 4 asked the UP government to file its detailed response after hearing a plea filed by the father of one of the victims challenging the Allahabad HC's acquittal order of Moninder Singh Pandher and Surendra Koli in the gruesome Nithari killings.
The top court also earlier issued notices to the respective parties after hearing a Special Leave Petition (SLP) filed by Pappu Lal, the father of one of the victim girls in the case.
Lal had moved the apex court to challenge the acquittal of Pandher and Koli. The lawyers who represented Lal in the top court were Geeta Luthra, Shivani Luthra Lohiya, and others.
The brutal murders came to public attention and created a scary picture in December 2006, in the small village of Nithari, a distance of 20 odd kilometres from the national capital, when several skeletons were discovered in a drain near a house in the village of Noida.
The police, after a thorough investigation, revealed that Pandher was the owner of the house and Koli was his domestic help.
The CBI took up the investigation into the matter and arrested Koli and Pandher, and accordingly, a chargesheet was filed by the probe agency against the duo for their crime.