Nithari Killings : Supreme Court Rejects CBI Appeals Against Acquittals Of Koli & Pandher, Lauds HC For Withstanding Media Pressure

A bench of Chief Justice of India BR Gavai, Justice Satish Chandra Sharma, and Justice K. Vinod Chandran dismissed a total of 14 appeals by the CBI as well as victims' families challenging the Allahabad High Court order setting aside their conviction and death sentence. A reasoned order of the Supreme Court is expected to follow.

"It is rather complimentary of the judges of the High Court for writing such a judgment. There must be a lot of media pressure and all that. By withstanding such pressure they have given such a...The trial court sorry to say must have been on the basis of media trial", Justice Gavai remarked, adding that the appellants failed to point out a single perversity in the High Court judgment.

While Pandher has been acquitted in all cases against him, Koli remains in prison as his murder conviction and death sentence in another case related to the serial murders was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2011. The Allahabad High Court in 2015 commuted Koli's sentence to life imprisonment due to "inordinate delay" in deciding his mercy petition.

During the hearing today, the bench observed that the area behind the Pandher's house where the remains of the victims were found was not exclusively accessible by the accused. “The law is that it has to be recovered from the place exclusively known to the accused alone and accessible by the accused alone”, Justice Gavai said.

The Nithari killings came to light in December 2006, when skeletal remains of several children and women were found in a drain behind Pandher's residence in Noida's Nithari area. Koli was employed as a domestic worker in the household.

The CBI registered 16 cases, charge-sheeting Koli in all for murder, abduction, rape, and destruction of evidence. Pandher was initially charge-sheeted in one case for immoral trafficking, but was later summoned in five more cases by a Ghaziabad court on petitions filed by the families of several victims.

The CBI alleged that Koli murdered several girls, dismembered their bodies, and disposed of the remains in the backyard of Pandher's house. A total of 19 victims' remains were reportedly recovered.

The batch of appeals before the Supreme Court, mostly filed by the CBI and State authorities, challenged the October 2023 judgment of the Allahabad High Court, which had acquitted Surendra Koli and co-accused Moninder Singh Pandher for lack of evidence. The High Court observed that the possibility of organ trade being the cause of killings in Nithari was not probed by the CBI even when the resident of the adjoining house had been arrested earlier in case of a kidney scam.

Koli had earlier been convicted and sentenced to death in 12 cases, while Pandher was convicted in two. The petitions were listed before the Supreme Court after notice was issued in July 2024.

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court expressed dissatisfaction with the conduct of the State authorities during the hearings on the appeals.

On April 3, Justice Gavai had observed that, none were ready to argue, which presented a “very sorry picture of Union/CBI”.

The Counsel appearing for Koli had argued at the time that the State's case was “hollow”, with the only evidence being a confession under Section 164 CrPC made after 60 days of custody and a recovery under Section 27 of the Indian Evidence Act. He submitted that the case was actually one of organ-trading, misrepresented by the prosecution as one of cannibalism and sexual deviance. He highlighted the absence of blood-stained clothes, murder weapons, or torsos of the victims and pointed out that the recovered body parts had been cut with surgical precision.

Case no. – Crl.A. No. 1572-1574/2025 and connected cases

Case Title – State through Central Bureau of Investigation v. Surender Koli Etc. and connected cases