New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to examine petitions filed by CBI against the verdict delivered by the Allahabad High Court verdict, acquitting Surendra Koli in the sensational 2006 Nithari serial killings case.
A bench comprising justices B R Gavai and K V Viswanathan sought a response from Koli on separate pleas filed by the CBI against the high court's verdict delivered in October 2023. In May this year, the apex court had agreed to hear a plea filed by the father of one of the victims’ assailing the high court's verdict.
The apex court said it will hear the petitions filed by CBI along with the petition filed by father of a victim.
During the hearing, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the CBI, submitted before the bench that Koli was a serial killer who used to lure young girls and kill them and termed the killings "gruesome".
Mehta contended that there were accusations of cannibalism and the trial court had awarded the death penalty to Koli, but the same had been reversed by the high court.
In December 2006, the sensational killings came to light with the discovery of the skeletal remains of eight children from a drain behind a house at Nithari in Noida.
Most of these remains were those of poor children and young women who had gone missing from the area. Within 10 days, the CBI had taken over the case and its search resulted in the recovery of more remains.
