2006 Nithari killings: Acquitted by Allahabad High Court, Pandher walks out of Noida prison

Wearing black sunglasses, a striped kurta and a brown sleeveless jacket, Pandher walked out holding his lawyer’s hand. When asked about the judgment and the case, he folded his hands, sat in the car, and left. “He is on the way to his home in Chandigarh. His health is not very good. He will soon hold a press conference and will talk about the judgment,” said the lawyer.

Pandher (66) was in jail for around 13 years after he was first arrested on December 12, 2006, along with his house help Surinder Koli, in the case.

Jail Superintendent Arun Pratap Singh said Pandher was transferred to Noida Jail as part of a programme to decongest prisons. “He was shifted to this prison on June 4 from Dasna Jail in Ghaziabad. Along with him, many other prisoners from Bulandshahr, Ghaziabad, Saharanpur and Muzaffarnagar were shifted here. When he came here, he was in a wheelchair (he suffers from tuberculosis). He was kept in a separate isolation ward for TB patients. He was given care and medication,” said Singh.

Setting aside their death sentences, the High Court Monday had acquitted Pandher and Koli saying the prosecution failed to prove their guilt. In its judgment, the court had pointed to the violation of basic norms of collecting evidence. But the most crucial of them all was “failure” to probe the “possible” angle of organ trade. While Koli was acquitted in 12 cases, Pandher was acquitted in two cases. Both had been awarded the death penalty in these cases relating to rape, murder, destruction of evidence among other charges by a CBI court in Ghaziabad. Koli will remain in prison as he is serving life sentence in another case related to the killings.

Pandher was accused in a total of six cases; he was earlier acquitted by the trial court in three cases and in one by the Allahabad High Court. He was also convicted for offences under the Immoral Trafficking (Prevention) Act, 1956, under Sections 5 and 7, in another case arising out of the Nithari killings against which no appeal was filed. However, the High Court said he had already completed the sentence prescribed under the said conviction.

“Accused Pandher otherwise in jail since 24.07.2017 and has by now undergone incarceration of more than six years, which is more than the punishment stipulated for offences under the Immoral Trafficking (Prevention) Act, 1956. In such circumstances, further incarceration of the accused would not be warranted in view of the findings returned by us in the present appeal,” said the bench of Justice Syed Aftab Husain Rizvi and Justice Ashwani Kumar Mishra.