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The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed the appeals of the Central Bureau of Investigation, Uttar Pradesh government and the victims' families against the acquittal of Moninder Singh Pandher and his domestic help, Surendra Koli, by the Allahabad High Court in the 2006 Nithari serial killings case.
A bench of Chief Justice of India BR Gavai and Justices Satish Chandra Sharma and K Vinod Chandran upheld the Allahabad High Court order of October 16, 2023, which had acquitted Pandher and Koli. Both Koli and Pandher were accused of rape and murder, mostly of children in the neighbourhood of Noida in 2005-06. In 2024, the top court had agreed to examine separate pleas filed by the CBI, UP government and Pappu Lal, father of one of the victim girls, challenging the Allahabad High Court's order of acquitting businessman Pandher and Koli. The Allahabad High Court had on October 16, 2023, acquitted Pandher and Koli in some of the cases concerning the Nithari killings and overturned the death penalty imposed on them by the trial court in September 2010. It had acquitted Koli in 12 cases and Pandher in 2 cases, where they were earlier held guilty for murder and awarded the death penalty by the trial court in these cases. The CBI had registered 16 cases against Koli and Pandher over the rape and killing of girls that had shocked the nation. The case came to public attention in December 2006 when skeletons were discovered in a drain near a house in Nithari village, Noida. Pandher was the owner of the house, and Koli was his domestic help. Koli was accused in all of the cases on various charges, including murder, abduction, rape, and the destruction of evidence. However, Pandher was named in six of them. Koli was convicted of committing multiple rapes and murders of various girls and was sentenced to death in more than 10 cases. (ANI)
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