Surendra Koli Vs State Of Uttar Pradesh & Anr: The Nithari Judgement

Facts:

A curative petition arised, after review petition was dismissed, by which court affirmed the petitioner’s conviction and sentence of death in Rimpa Haldar case on 28.01.2025. The high court of Allahabad commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment.
The petitioner, was employed as a domestic house help by the employer of the petitioner in sector-31, Noida. From early 2005 residents of Nithari began reporting that women and children were missing. In march 2005, children in the neighbhourhood noticed a human hand in the narrow open strip between houses D5 and D6 and the Jal board residential quarters and on 03.12.2006 a human hand was again noticed during drain cleaning.
Following which local police took the petitioner into custody in connection woth disapperance of one of the victims and on the same day pander was also detained. Thirteen trials followed . Each proceeded on a common evidentiary foundation that comprised the alleged disclosure leading to recoveries and confessional statement under section 164 of the CRPC, 1973
The petitioner was convicted in Rimpa Haldar case by trial court under section 302,364,376 and 201 of IPC,1860 and imposed death sentence wherein the court relied on confession under s164 recorded and on the recoveries made. The High court affirmed the conviction and acquitted co-accused Pandher wherein the HC treated the confession as voluntary and reliable.

The twelve cases

Between 2010 and 2021 the petitioner was tried and convicted in 12 additional capital cases along with co-accused. In 16.10.2023 the HC allowed the appeal and acquitted the petitioner and held the confession could not be treated as voluntary or reliable.

Issue:

1. Whether two sets of outcomes of Supreme Court cases can stand together when they rest on an identical evidentiary foundation?

Supreme Court’s Observation:

1. The Investigation officer’s proximity to the recording process, including his presence at the outset and his ready access, thereafter, compromised the environment of voluntariness. The text of the statement itself repeatedly adverted to tutoring and to prior coercion.This feature attracted bar under section 24 of the Evidence Act and rendered confession inadmissible as a matter of law.
2. The recovery and discovery under section 27 of the evidence act, High court found that no contemporaneous disclosure memo was proved. The narrative in the later-prepared seizure memorandum conflicted with the remand paper, which recorded a joint disclosure by both accused.
3. The evidence showed that police and members of the public already knew that bones and articles lay in the open strip and that excavation had begun before the petitioner arrived.
4. Once the disclosure is not contemporaneously proved,once prior knowledge is established, and once contradictions infect the record, section 27 of the evidencw act ceases to operate.
5. The legal conclusion cannot change from case to case when the premise is identical.The forensic analysis reinforces that conclusion. Extensive search of D-5 by expert teams did not yield human bloodstains, remain or transfer patterns consistent with multiple homicides and dismember inside the house.
6. The DNA work undertaken did not prove authorship of homicide by the petitioner within D-5. Knives and an axe were exhibited without proof of blood ,tissue or hair consistent with use in alleged crimes.
7. There was no credible chain of custody or expert testimony establishing that a domestic help with no medical training could perform the precise dismemberment described.These gaps were central to the acquittals in 12 cases by the High court.

Ratio:

1. To allow a conviction stand on evidentiary basis that this court has since rejected as involuntary or inadmissible in the very same fact matrix offends article 21 of the constitution. It also violates Article 14 of the constitution, since like cases must be treated alike. Arbitrary disparity in outcomes on an identical record is inimical to equality before the law.
2. The supposed discoveries do not satisfy the statutory preconditions for admissibility. The forensic and investigative record does not supply the missing links. Once those keystones are removed, the circumstantial chain no longer holds. The conviction cannot be sustained without departing from principles that now stand authoritatively applied to indistinguishable prosecutions arising out of the same occurrence. For these reasons, we hold that the petitioner has established a fundamental defect that impeaches the integrity of the adjudicatory process and that relief is warranted ex debito justitiae within the parameters of Rupa Ashok Hurra case.
3. The scene was not secured before excavation began, the alleged disclosure was not contemporaneously recorded, the remand papers carried contradictory versions, and the petitioner was kept in prolonged police custody without a timely, court-directed medical examination.
4. Crucial scientific opportunities were lost when post-mortem material and other forensic outputs were not promptly and properly brought on incriminating traces that could be forensically anchored to the alleged events.
5. The investigation did not adequately examine obvious witnesses from the household and neighbourhood and did not pursue material leads, including the organ-trade angle flagged by a governmental committee.
6. Each lapse weakened the provenance and reliability of the evidence and narrowed the path to the truth.

Held:

Curative petition was allowed. The petitoner was acquitted.

Reference:

Refer the judgement

http://Source: Verdictum https://share.google/rDSXEXGgVg2TlxEuL