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The Allahabad High Court on Monday pulled up the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for its casual approach in the appeal filed by Surinder Koli against his conviction and death sentence in the 2006 Nithari serial killings case. Koli was found guilty of raping and murdering several children within a span of one year.

Pertaining to CBI's response to Koli's one application seeking production of the post mortem reports of the victims, the bench of Justice Manoj Misra and Justice Sameer Jain noted, "On our question as to why there is so much delay in submitting reply or producing postmortem report, we could not get cogent explanation from Sri Sanjay Kumar Yadav, who represents CBI. This casual approach on the part of CBI is clearly unacceptable."

Elaborating CBI's dereliction of duty, Court said, "(CBI's counsel) states that he has prepared a draft reply and the same has been sent for vetting to the department concerned but response is awaited...When we requested Sri Sanjay Kumar Yadav to give a specific date by which the response would be filed, he stated that the matter may be taken up on 07th March, 2022."

Therefore, the Court directed that the instant matter along with other connected matters shall be put up on March 7, 2022, however, taking serious note of the delay on CBI's part, it added that if by then (Court's) earlier orders are not complied with "a responsible officer of the concerned department of CBI shall be personally present in Court to submit his explanation."

This development has taken place in the application moved by Koli, under Section 91 read with Section 294 of the Criminal Procedure Code on November 18, 2021, for production of the post mortem report of one of the victim children in the case. However, despite being given several chances by the Court, the CBI failed to produce the said report.

In December 2006, several skeletons were found in a drain near a house in Nithari, Noida.

The CBI had then registered 16 cases into the matter. One Moninder Pandher was found to be the owner of the house and Koli was identified as his domestic help.

Koli, thereafter, was found guilty for murder, abduction, rape and destruction of evidence and was awarded death penalty in over 10 cases among all. His appeals against conviction in almost all cases are currently pending in higher courts. 

Cause Title: Surendra Koli vs State through CBI