Nithari killings: Supreme Court to hear pleas challenging Surendra Koli's acquittal on April 3

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday said it would hear on April 3 a batch of petitions challenging the acquittal of Surendra Koli in the 2006 Nithari serial killings case.

The apex court had last year agreed to examine separate pleas, including those filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Uttar Pradesh government, challenging the Allahabad High Court's decision acquitting Koli on October 16, 2023.

The pleas were listed for hearing on Tuesday before a bench of Justices B R Gavai and Augustine George Masih.

One of the lawyers appearing in the case mentioned the matter before the bench and requested that the pleas be taken up for hearing next week.

Terming it an "extraordinary case", the counsel said children were going missing in Nithari for about two years and later, the police found several skeletal remains.

The lawyer said that Koli was arrested in the case and was kept in police custody for around 60 days.

"We will grant leave and will have it on some Thursday," the bench said and posted the matter for April 3.

Koli's counsel had earlier told the apex court that evidence against him was a confessional statement, recorded several days after his police custody in the case.

One of the pleas in the top court has been filed by the father of one of the victims challenging the high court's verdict.

Koli was awarded death penalty on September 28, 2010 by the trial court.

Moninder Singh Pandher and his domestic help Koli were accused of rape and murder of persons, mostly children from their neighbourhood in Nithari, UP.

The high court acquitted them in the death penalty case and said the prosecution had failed to prove their guilt "beyond reasonable doubt" and called it a "botched up" investigation.

Reversing the death sentence given to Koli in 12 cases and Pandher in two cases, the high court said the probe was "nothing short of a betrayal of public trust by responsible agencies".

The high court allowed multiple appeals filed by Koli and Pandher, who challenged the death sentence awarded by a CBI court in Ghaziabad.

A total of 19 cases were lodged against the duo in 2007, and the CBI filed closure reports in three cases due to lack of evidence.

Koli was acquitted in three of the 16 remaining cases and his death sentence in one case was commuted to life.

The killings came to light with the discovery of the skeletal remains of eight children from a drain behind Pandher's house at Nithari in Noida, bordering the national capital, on December 29, 2006.

Further digging and searches of drains in the area around the house led to more skeletal remains. Most of these remains were those of children and young women who went missing in the area.

The CBI took over the case within 10 days of the crime and its search resulted in the recovery of more human remains.