SC agrees to hear CBI’s plea against HC verdict acquitting Surendra Koli

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to hear a fresh plea filed by the CBI challenging the Allahabad High Court’s verdict that acquitted Surendra Koli in the sensational 2006 Nithari serial killings case.

A bench of Justices B R Gavai and K V Viswanathan tagged the CBI’s plea with some other petitions pending in the Apex Court against the high court order of October 16, 2023. The Apex Court had in May agreed to hear a plea filed by the father of one of the victims challenging the high court’s verdict acquitting Koli in one of the cases. In this case, Moninder Singh Pandher was acquitted by the sessions court while Koli was awarded the death penalty on September 28, 2010.

The high court had acquitted domestic help Koli and his employer Pandher in the case in which they were facing a death sentence, holding that the prosecution failed to prove the guilt “beyond reasonable doubt” and that the investigation was “botched up”.

Pandher and Koli were charged with rape and murder and sentenced to death in the killings that horrified the nation with their details of sexual assault, brutal murder and hints of possible cannibalism. In all, 19 cases had been lodged against Pandher and Koli in 2007. The CBI had filed closure reports in three cases due to lack of evidence. In the remaining 16 cases, Koli was earlier acquitted in three and his death sentence in one was commuted to life.