Overview

• A bench of Chief Justice B. R. Gavai with Justices Surya Kant and Vikram Nath reserved its verdict on Koli’s curative petition after an open-court hearing on Tuesday.
• The judges said it would be a “travesty of justice” to sustain the 2011 verdict when 12 similar cases have ended in acquittals.
• The remaining case rests on Koli’s custodial confession and a kitchen knife recovered from a lane behind his house, evidence the court has already found legally untenable elsewhere.
• On July 30, the Supreme Court acquitted Koli in 12 Nithari cases and dismissed 14 appeals by the CBI and victims’ families, citing grave investigative lapses and inadmissible recoveries.
• If the curative plea is allowed, Koli will have no surviving conviction in the Nithari prosecutions that stemmed from skeletal remains found near Moninder Singh Pandher’s Noida home in 2006–07.