MillenniumPost
Delhi

Nithari case: SC seeks Koli’s reply on UP govt plea

A Bench of Chief Justice HL Dattu and Justices Amitava Roy and Arun Mishra issued notice to Koli on the UP government's petition against the high court order that had <g data-gr-id="21">rapped</g> it for "inordinate delay" in deciding Koli's mercy petition.

On January 28, 2015, the Allahabad high court had commuted the death sentence, awarded to Koli to <g data-gr-id="27">life</g> term in the murder of 14-year-old Rimpa Haldar. Koli was sentenced to death by a special CBI court in Ghaziabad on February 13, 2009.

The high court had passed the <g data-gr-id="19">order,</g> while allowing a PIL filed by People's Union for Democratic Rights, clubbed with another petition filed by Koli himself.

Both the petitions had questioned the constitutionality of the execution of the death sentence in the light of the fact that Koli has been in jail for more than seven years and that the time taken in deciding his mercy petition alone was "three years and three months", violative of the Right to Life granted in Article 21 of the Constitution.

Haldar’s murder came to light in December 2006, when many children from Nithari went missing over a period of time and skeletons were recovered from near the residence of Koli's <g data-gr-id="28">employee</g>, Noida-based businessman Moninder Singh Pandher. 

The high court had come down heavily on the Uttar Pradesh government, saying that out of the three years and three months, which elapsed in deciding Koli's mercy petition, "as many as 26 months" were taken up by the Uttar Pradesh government itself, which was "unnecessary and unreasonable".

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