New delhi: In a major setback to the CBI and families of the 2006 Nithari case victims, the Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed as many as 14 appeals of the probe agency and some family members challenging the acquittal of Surendra Koli and Moninder Singh Pandher in the gruesome serial killings.
The killings came to light with the discovery of 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 Pandher’s house led to more skeletal remains. Most of these remains were that of poor children and young women who had gone missing from the area. Within 10 days, the CBI took over the case and its search resulted in the recovery of more remains.
A bench comprising Chief Justice B R Gavai and justices Satish Chandra Sharma and K Vinod Chandran dismissed the 14 appeals on Wednesday. Twelve pleas were filed by the CBI and the other two by Pappu Lal and Anil Haldar.
“There is no perversity in the Allahabad High Court judgement... (the petitions are) dismissed,” the CJI said after a brief hearing.
At the outset, the CJI asked Raja B Thakare, appearing for the CBI, and senior advocate Geeta Luthra, representing the victims’ family members, to show what was wrong and “perverse” with the findings of the Allahabad High Court.
“Show me one judgement which says that any recovery made without recording of the statement of an accused before the police is permissible in law,” the CJI asked when Luthra and the CBI counsel referred to recoveries of skulls of kidnapped children and their belongings. The bench referred to section 27 of the Evidence Act and said that recoveries made at the instance of accused and their statements made before the police can be admissible in evidence. The top court also referred to the recoveries made from a drain near the house
of the accused. It said these recovered objects and materials can be attributed to the accused if the place of recovery is accessible to them only.
Luthra said as many as 16 poor children went missing and skulls and other belongings of the victims were recovered from the drain. “In appeals against acquittal by the high court, you will have to show that the high court judgement was perverse,” the CJI said.
Section 27 allows for the admissibility of a portion of information provided by an accused in police custody that leads to the discovery of a relevant fact, even if that information amounts to a confession.
According to the provision, if an accused provides information that helps police find something connected to a crime, that specific information, and only that portion, can be used as evidence.
On May 4, 2024, the top court had agreed to hear pleas challenging the high court’s order acquitting Koli in the case. It had also issued a notice on an appeal filed by Pappu Lal, the father of one of the victims.
In his plea, Lal challenged the high court’s October 2023 order acquitting Koli, Pandher’s domestic help. The court reversed their death sentences, citing a botched probe, lack of evidence, and shifting prosecution claims across the 2006 Noida killings.