The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the acquittal of Surendra Koli and Moninder Singh Pandher, accused in a series of murders that took place during 2005-2006 at Nithari village in Noida, Uttar Pradesh.
The Bench of Chief Justice of India BR Gavai, Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice K Vinod Chandran dismissed a total of 14 petitions filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as well as the victims’ families challenging the Allahabad High Court order of 2023 that set aside their conviction and death sentence.
The top court of the country said the appellants failed to point out a single perversity in the High Court verdict.
It observed that the area behind Pandher’s house where the remains of the victims were found was not exclusively accessible by the accused. As per the law, it had to be recovered from the place exclusively known and accessible to the accused alone.
The Apex Court said it was rather complimentary of the High Court judges to deliver such a verdict, while undergoing immense media pressure and all that. The trial court must have passed the judgment on the basis of media trial, it added.
A detailed order is awaited.
The 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 Nithari village of Noida. Koli was employed as a domestic worker in the household.
CBI registered total 16 cases. Koli was chargesheeted in all cases for murder, abduction, rape, and destruction of evidence. Initially, Pandher was charge-sheeted in one case for immoral trafficking. He was later summoned in five more cases by a Ghaziabad court on petitions filed by the families of several victims.
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 petitioners, including CBI, State authorities and families of the victims, challenged the October 2023 verdict of the Allahabad High Court, which acquitted Koli and co-accused Moninder Singh Pandher for lack of evidence.
The High Court observed that CBI did not investigate the possibility of organ trade being the cause of killings in Nithari, even when the resident of the adjoining house had been arrested earlier in case of a kidney scam.
Koli was earlier convicted and sentenced to death in 12 cases, while Pandher was convicted in two.
Earlier, the Apex Court had expressed dissatisfaction with the conduct of the State authorities during the hearings on the appeals.
On April 3, 2025, Justice Gavai observed that no one were ready to argue, which presented a very ‘sorry’ picture of the Union government/CBI.
The Counsel appearing for Koli had argued 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.
As per the Counsel, the prosecution misrepresented an organ-trading case as one of cannibalism and sexual deviance. Pointing towards the absence of blood-stained clothes, murder weapons, or torsos of the victims, he submitted that the recovered body parts had been cut with surgical precision.
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