Introduction

Surendra Koli’s acquittal in Nithari killings presents a dilemma. The dilemma between the need to satisfy the quest for justice versus the belief in the legal system. The media, in this case, had declared Surinder Koli as the convict in the Nithari killings. Not only that, the Indian justice system right up to the Supreme Court of India (SCI) had declared him the convict awarding him capital punishment. He was saved from the hanging by an activist lawyer by literally waking up the judges and the justice system at midnight. Thereafter, he has been acquitted in a curative petition (the out of syllabus answer to an out of syllabus question given by the SCI in Rupa Ashok Hurra). However, the quest for justice remains unsatisfied. Now, we only know that, as per the judiciary, Surendra Koli is innocent. But who killed those victims? Nobody knows.

Even now there is the choice to satisfy the quest for justice by disbelieving the SCI and continuing to consider Surendra Koli as the convict. I have often done this by questioning the SCI on its important decisions including the one delivered in the case of Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister. I am doing that herein below as well, but, this time, I am also acting as an optimist by taking a pro-legal system view.

The Facts

In the year 2007, Surendra Koli was charged with killing innocent children in Noida area of NCR, Delhi, India, in the most barbaric manner after sexually assaulting them and with dumping their mutilated bodies in the drain next to his master’s house, where he was employed as a domestic help. There were stories that he was an impotent and was under the belief that his impotence could be cured by sexually assaulting young girls and killing them thereafter.

Surendra Koli confessed to the charges before a magistrate under section 164 CrPC. All his convictions in total thirteen cases were based on section 164 CrPC confession corroborated by section 27, the Indian Evidence Act, discoveries and some forensic evidence. One of the cases was decided separately from others and led to the conviction of Surendra Koli right upto the SCI including in a review petition. However, he was acquitted in the twelve other cases by the Allahabad High Court on 16.10.2023, which was later confirmed in the SCI on 30.07.2025, albeit much later after the final conviction in the first case on 15.02.2011. His mercy petition in the first case was dismissed by the president of India in July, 2014. Thereafter, he was to be hanged unto death on any date between 07.09.2014 and 13.09.2014, but he was saved from it by an activist lawyer, who got the last minute stay on 08.09.2014 in a review petition. The review petition was, however, later dismissed on 28.10.2014.

A mercy petition is normally the final recourse available to a capital punishment convict; however, since there was an inordinate delay in deciding the mercy petition, the high court commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment on 28.01.2015. Finally, he has been acquited in the first case as well on 11.11.2025.

The Quest for Justice

If we ignore the latest judgment of the SCI dated 11.11.2025, there is no reason to believe that Surendra Koli is not a convict. Multiple conspiracy theories can be woven around this volte face by the SCI. It can be assumed that some serious political considerations affected the outlook of the judges post 08.09.2014 as if a decision had been made in influential quarters to save him from gallows, and whatever happened in the apparent legal system was just a false facade for the actual deep state political system. In other words, judiciary is just for namesake. It’s the political system that decides the fates of criminals, especially when it comes to the matter of life and death. To be frank, the above conspiracy theory is also true to an extent, but such a deep state sprung into action only when it is a matter of national security. There seems to be no national security interest in saving the life of a barbaric murderer. This seems to be a case where such a conspiracy theory should not work.

There can be other conspiracy theories like his master (who was himself accused in two cases and was acquitted later on) being an influential person, bribed the right quarters to get him released. And since the victims were all poor with no recourse to good lawyers or politicians, and since the media had also lost interest in the matter, the legal system actually acted naturally corrupt in releasing an influential person. But, the biggest counter to such a theory is the absence of true influence. Whatever the influence of the master, Surendra Koli himself is not influential, and domestic servants are normally not extended such favors, especially when they also take their master’s name in their confession.

There can be no dearth of conspiracy theories, but the question is how much can you act cynical. Let’s take a different view below.

The Judgment and the Legal System

The Indian legal system does provide multiple opportunities to itself to correct itself. The Surendra Koli case is an excellent example of it, and the lawyers played an important role in it. The single most important event of this saga is the stay on his hanging in a midnight hearing. The stay was granted to provide another opportunity to the convict to be represented through proper legal aid before the court.

Eventually, the life was saved by challenging the inordinate delay in deciding the mercy petition. This gets tied to cruelty. It is considered cruel to keep a person uncertain about his fate with respect to his death. The repentance for the same is automatic extension of mercy. It is a prayer-cum-challenge to the state by the ordinary citizen whose death has been rendered artificial through the operation of a legal system. If the prayer remains unanswered, the prayer becomes a challenge. Only god — the artifical creation of men — has been left as an illusion worth preserving for the uncertainty of death.

Once the life had been saved, the next challenge for the lawyers was to perfect the legal system, which they did by ensuring that the legal system worked efficiently in the undecided cases. They got acquittal in all other cases mainly on the following grounds:

1. The magistrate didn’t record clear satisfaction on voluntariness of the confession.
2. The petitioner had been kept in uninterrupted police custody for sixty days before recording the confession.
3. The petitioner had no meaningful and private access to legal aid.
4. The bar of section 24, the Indian Evidence Act, was attracted because of suspected torture and tutoring apparent from the content of the confession statement itself.
5. The discoveries and recoveries under section 27, the Indian Evidence Act, were unreliable and inadmissible because of joint recoveries, prior public knowledge of recovered items, no contemporaneous disclosure statements, etc.
6. The drain next to the master’s house was not within the exclusive domain of the petitioner.
7. All angles, including the organ-trade angle, were not investigated.
8. No independent case was made out on the circumstantial evidence per se.

To be frank, sending someone to gallows solely on the basis of his confession is miscarriage of justice in itself. This gives an opportunity to the investigators to create evidence through the torture of the accused. This is the easiest way to solve a case. No need to collect any evidence. Just seek a confession through torture, take him to a magistrate, and get him prosecuted. It is rather reflective of the sorry state of the Indian legal system that a person was almost hanged on such evidence. Thankfully, the system corrected itself eventually.

The last challenge for the lawyers was to reverse a decision even after a conviction in a review petition, which, for all practical purposes, is the last recourse. The curative petition, as a last resort, was actually introduced to answer the questions posed by senior advocates, who would often challenge the final decisions of the SCI in a writ petition on the ground of denial of natural justice in the judicial proceedings thereby infringing fundamental right to life. The SCI provided an answer by introducing the concept of curative petition as a last recourse against the inefficiencies of the legal system vide Rupa Ashok Hurra (supra). The SCI also made the senior advocates partner in justice delivery by imposing a duty on them to provide a certificate of maintainability of a curative petition, without which the curative petition can’t be filed.

The curative petition could be filed only on two grounds: denial of natural justice because of no hearing or notice and bias. The judgment in Surendra Koli has expanded it further to include manifest miscarriage of justice. Manifest miscarriage of justice is a very broad term. One can assume that now the curative petition remedy is available in almost all instances of injustice. In the context of Surendra Koli, however, the manifest miscarriage of justice has been found in two contradicting outcomes from the final disposal of the two sets of appeals arising from “the common evidentiary pillars in the companion matters”. This is basically the reinforcement of the principle of parity. Thus, the legal system corrected itself on 11.11.2025.

The Resolution of Dilemma

There are two choices for the resolution of the dilemma stated by me above. One choice is to accept one of my conspiracy theories irrespective the reservations expressed therein or to formulate some other conspiracy theory, which may even be the correct conspiracy theory backed by logic and circumstantial evidence. The second choice is to bestow faith in the legal system. I am not disclosing my choice, but I can just say that I am capable of constructing many more conspiracy theories and also of bestowing faith in the legal system.