The top court last year agreed to examine separate pleas, including those filed by the CBI and the Uttar Pradesh government, challenging the Allahabad High Court’s decision acquitting Koli on October 16, 2023.One of the pleas was filed by the father of one of the victims challenging the high court’s verdict.Moninder Singh Pandher and his domestic help Koli were accused of rape and murder of people, mostly children from their neighbourhood in Nithari in Uttar Pradesh.Koli was awarded the death penalty on September 28, 2010 by the trial court.The high court acquitted Pandher and Koli in the death penalty case, holding the prosecution’s failure to prove their guilt “beyond reasonable doubt” and called it a “botched up” investigation.Reversing the death sentence given to Koli in 12 cases and Pandher in two cases, the high court said the probe was “nothing short of a betrayal of public trust by responsible agencies.”
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