The Supreme Court has acquitted Surendra Koli of all charges in the 2006 Nithari serial killings case and cancelled his earlier conviction, news agency ANI reported. The court has also ordered that he should be released immediately if he is not involved in any other case.
A Supreme Court bench led by Chief Justice BR Gavai, along with Justices Surya Kant and Vikram Nath, approved Surendra Koli’s curative petition that challenged the court’s 2011 ruling upholding his conviction in one of the Nithari murder cases. Koli’s plea was based on the fact that he had been acquitted in 12 other related cases that used the same evidence.
Justice Vikram Nath, who read out the verdict, said that Koli has been cleared of all charges. The earlier Supreme Court rulings from February 2011 and October 2014, which had confirmed his conviction and dismissed his review plea, were cancelled.
The top court also overturned the 2009 judgments of the Sessions Court that had found him guilty. It ordered his immediate release if he is not wanted in any other case.
Koli’s petition explained
In his curative plea, Surendra Koli argued that his conviction in one of the Nithari cases was unfair because the same evidence used against him in that case was later found unreliable in the other cases where he was acquitted.
During earlier hearings, the bench had noted that keeping the conviction would be inconsistent since the evidence was identical across all the cases.
Nithari Serial Killings 2006
The Nithari murders were discovered in December 2006 after the skeletons of several children were found in a drain behind the home of businessman Moninder Singh Pandher in Noida’s Nithari area. Pandher and his domestic worker, Surendra Koli, were both arrested after the shocking discovery.
