New Delhi, Oct 7 — The Supreme Court on Tuesday reserved its verdict on Surendra Koli’s curative petition, challenging his conviction and death sentence in one of the Nithari killings cases. The three-judge Bench, headed by Chief Justice of India BR Gavai and comprising Justices Surya Kant and Vikram Nath, observed that the petition “deserves to be allowed.”
Curative petitions, a mechanism devised by the apex court in Rupa Ashok Hurra v Ashok Hurra (2002), are generally considered a litigant’s last chance for justice. They are usually not taken up in open court and are entertained on grounds of violation of principles of natural justice. However, the Bench granted an open court hearing to Koli, citing the “anomalous situation” arising from his **acquittal in all other related cases.”
“It deserves to be allowed in a minute,” the Bench remarked to Additional Solicitor General Rajkumar Bhaskar Thakare, who appeared for the CBI. The court noted that Koli’s conviction in the case was primarily based on a statement and the recovery of a kitchen knife, raising questions about the sufficiency of evidence.
If the curative petition is allowed, Koli will walk free, having already been acquitted in other Nithari killings cases.
The Nithari killings, which came to light in December 2006, involved the discovery of skeletal remains of eight children behind Moninder Pandher’s house in Noida. Subsequent searches uncovered more remains, mostly of poor children and young women reported missing from the area. The CBI took over the case, and a total of 19 cases were lodged against Pandher and Koli in 2007.
Koli had been convicted of the rape and murder of a 15-year-old girl in Nithari, with the Supreme Court upholding his conviction in February 2011. His review petition was dismissed in 2014, and in January 2015, the Allahabad High Court commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment due to inordinate delays in deciding his mercy petition.
In October 2023, the Allahabad High Court acquitted Koli and Pandher in several other Nithari cases, reversing the death sentences handed by the trial court in 2017. Koli was acquitted in 12 cases and Pandher in two. On July 30 this year, the Supreme Court upheld the Allahabad High Court’s verdict, stating that “there is no perversity in the Allahabad High Court judgment.”
The court’s verdict on Koli’s curative petition will determine whether he is released following his acquittals in the other cases, potentially closing a long and controversial chapter in one of India’s most infamous serial crime cases.
