JOIN USNithari serial murderer's plea rejected
The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a plea made by Surendra Koli, a death row convict in the 2005-06 Nithari serial killings of children, which sought a stay on his execution.
A bench of Justices H L Dattu and Anil R Dave also dismissed a review petition filed by Koli, which challenged its February 2011 verdict that confirmed his capital punishment. After the matter was taken up in chamber, the court dismissed the petition on the grounds of delay in its filing and the merits of the case.
“There is a delay of 1,153 days in filing the review petition, which has not been satisfactorily explained. Even otherwise, we have gone through the review petition and the connected papers. We see no reason to interfere with the order impugned. The review petition is, therefore, dismissed both on the ground of delay as well as on merits,” the bench said.
Notably, the President had on July 20 rejected Koli’s mercy plea. In a February 15, 2011, judgement of the apex court, Koli was awarded death penalty in one of the cases pertaining to the gruesome murder of 19 people, largely children. It had termed the murder as “horrifying and barbaric”.
Earlier in 2009, the Supreme Court had rejected Koli’s appeal against the decision of the Allahabad High Court to uphold the capital punishment awarded to him by a special CBI court in Ghaziabad.
It had noted that Koli, 42, an employee of Noida-based businessman Moninder Singh Pandher, used a “definite methodology” to commit the murders. He had lured the victims – ranging from four to 26 years – into Pandher’s house, after which he strangulated them, tried to have sex with their dead body, cooked the body parts to eat them and threw the remains in a drain.
A total of 19 FIRs had been registered following the recovery of human body parts from the drain in Noida in 2005-06, with 16 of the cases still pending. Koli is facing the gallows in three cases.
The matter relating to killing of 14-year-old Rimpa Haldar was the first case which reached the apex court and had got adjudicated.