Nithari killings: SC to hear pleas against 2023 order in March

The order was passed by a bench headed by justice Bhushan R Gavai while hearing a set of appeals filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Uttar Pradesh government challenging Koli’s acquittal.

The Supreme Court will hear on March 25 appeals against the 2023 Allahabad high court order that acquitted Surendra Koli in the horrific Nithari case involving cannibalism, rape, and murder of girls between 2005 and 2007.

Surendra Koli

The order was passed by a bench headed by justice Bhushan R Gavai while hearing a set of appeals filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Uttar Pradesh government challenging Koli’s acquittal.

The bench, also comprising justice Augustine George Masih, directed the top court’s registry to provide digitised trial court records for the hearing as Koli’s lawyers sought to rely on procedural lapses in the investigation.

The appeals were directed against the October 2023 Allahabad high court order passed in separate cases related to the killings at Nithari village near Noida, where a gory tale of cannibalism and brutal murders of nearly a dozen minor girls played out between 2005 and 2007.

The court had issued notices on nearly a dozen appeals filed by CBI and state government in July last year. The HC order had reversed the judgment of the trial court convicting Koli in 13 cases along with his employer Moninder Singh Pandher in two cases. CBI took up the investigation of the case in 2007, and out of the 16 cases lodged by the UP Police, three resulted in acquittals by the trial court.

Appearing for Koli, advocate Payoshi Roy contended that trial court records for all 13 cases had not been summoned by the Supreme Court. Solicitor general Tushar Mehta, representing the CBI, assured the court that since the records were digitised, they could be arranged quickly.

Posting the matter for March 25, the bench ordered the case records to be shared with both sides. Senior advocate Geeta Luthra appeared for the father of one of the victims who has separately filed an appeal challenging the acquittal order.

Roy, appearing virtually, informed the court that she would appear physically in March to argue for sustaining the acquittal. She said that Koli’s confessional statement was recorded by the investigators nearly two months after the incident took place. To avoid further delays, the court instructed the registry to expedite the case record transfer.

The CBI’s appeal described Koli as a “serial killer,” noting that he allegedly lured young girls, murdered them, and engaged in cannibalism. The trial court had sentenced Koli to death, but the high court acquitted him, citing serious flaws in the investigation.

According to the prosecution, Koli worked as a domestic help in Pandher’s house in Sector 31, Noida. Pandher would often call sex workers home, and watching his employer with sex workers triggered passions in the mind of Koli who enticed young victims on one pretext or the other and later raped and killed them. He then allegedly chopped the bodies, ate the torsos, and throw skulls, bones, clothes and other remains in a drain. Based on his confession, police recovered 16 skulls and various personal belongings of victims near Pandher’s house, the prosecution said.

The high court, in its acquittal order, strongly criticised the investigation, stating that basic evidence collection protocols were ignored. “It appears to us that the investigation opted for the easy course of implicating a poor servant of the house by demonising him, without taking due care of probing more serious aspects of possible involvement of organised activity of organ trading,” HC held.

Following the trial conducted in the 16 cases, Pandher and Koli were acquitted in three cases. In the remaining 13 cases, Koli was sentenced to death while Pandher was sentenced to death in two cases only. In one of the 13 cases, Koli’s death sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2011 considering the gravity of the offence alleged against him.