The Supreme Court will hear the appeals challenging the acquittal of Surendra Koli in the Nithari killings on March 25.
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 the digitised trial court records on the scheduled date of hearing as Koli’s lawyers sought to rely on the same to highlight procedural delays in the investigation of the case.
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 dozen minor girls were murdered 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 pointed out that trial court records in all 13 cases have not been summoned by the top court. Solicitor general Tushar Mehta appearing for CBI pointed out that since all the records are in digital format, it will not require much time in arranging for the same.
Posting the matter for March 25, the bench directed the entire case records to be shared with the lawyers appearing for both sides in the matter. Senior advocate Geeta Luthra appeared for the father of one of the victims who has separately filed an appeal challenging the acquittal order.
Roy, who appeared virtually, pointed out that in March she will appear physically to demonstrate how the acquittal is maintainable. She said that Koli’s confessional statement was recorded by the investigators nearly two months after the incident took place. To avoid any delay, the court asked the SC registry to expedite the supply of case records from the trial court.
The CBI in its appeal stated that Koli is a “serial killer” and the facts of the case highlight gruesome events involving cannibalism where he lured small girls, killed them and ate them. The trial court awarded death sentence and the high court acquitted him.
Accoding to the prosecution, Koli was a servant working in the house of Pandher 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. It was at his instance that police recovered 16 skulls and clothes and slippers of the victims near the drain behind the house, the prosecution said.
The high court, in its order, said that the investigation was botched up and basic norms of collecting evidence were brazenly violated. “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.