New Delhi: The Supreme Court has put on hold the execution of Nithari killings convict Surender Koli by a week.
A bench of Chief Justice-designate Justice H L Dattu and Justice Anil R Dave passed the order in the intervening night of Sunday and yesterday, suspending Koli’s execution on his appeal. Koli was represented by counsel Indira Jaising.
In its brief order, the court said an application to review the orders passed on July 24 was placed before it at 1 am yesterday.
In the application, it was stated that the execution of the death warrant might take place at 5.30 yesterday.
For recalling and reviewing the court’s orders, the applicant relied upon observations made by the Constitution Bench in a case related to Mohd. Arif delivered on September 2, the order said.
“Considering the urgency of the matter, we stay the execution of the death sentence of the applicant/petitioner for a period of one week from today (Monday),” the court said at its urgent hearing as it directed that the matter be listed next week.
The order staying Koli’s death sentence was signed at 1.30 am.
By its judgment delivered on September 2, the apex court’s Constitution Bench said the plea for the review of the court’s verdict upholding the death sentence would be heard in an open court by a bench of three judges.
The Constitution Bench had said its verdict would be applicable even when the review petition had been dismissed but the death sentence was yet to be carried out.
The Constitution Bench had held: “In such cases, the petitioners can apply for the reopening of their review petition within one month from the date of this judgment.”
Koli was to be executed yesterday at the Meerut jail.
Koli’s mercy petition was rejected by President Pranab Mukherjee and he was taken from the Dasna jail in Ghaziabad district to Meerut on September 4 for the execution of his death warrant, issued by a CBI court.
Officials had said earlier that he was to be hanged any time between September 7 and 12.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court in Ghaziabad issued a death warrant to Koli after his mercy petition was rejected by the president.
Koli was shifted to Meerut because of the absence of hanging facilities in Dasna.
He was convicted of the murder of a girl, Rimpa Halder, who went missing in Noida in December 2006. After a police investigation, she was found to have been murdered by Koli.
During the probe, the skeletal remains of many other children were recovered from a drain adjacent to a house in Nithari, an area in Noida where Koli worked as domestic help for businessman Moninder Singh Pandher.
Both Koli and Pandher were sentenced to death, but later the Allahabad High Court acquitted Pandher and upheld Koli’s death sentence. Koli’s sentence was then upheld by the Supreme Court. He filed a mercy petition before the president, which was turned down.IANS
