Supreme Court Allows Curative Petition, Sets Aside 2011 Death Conviction in Nithari Rimpa Haldar Case and Orders Acquittal

A three-judge bench of Chief Justice Bhushan Ramkrishna Gavai, Justice Surya Kant and Justice Vikram Nath heard a curative petition challenging this Court’s 15.02.2011 judgment which had affirmed the conviction and death sentence in the Rimpa Haldar matter. The petition arose from alleged irreconcilable outcomes across a cluster of Nithari prosecutions in which the same confession and discovery material under Section 27 Evidence Act were treated differently by courts.

The Court allowed the curative petition and recalled and set aside its earlier orders dated 15.02.2011 and 28.10.2014. It held that the conviction could not stand because the evidentiary pillars — the Section 164 CrPC confession and the Section 27 discoveries — were legally tainted in ways that had already been judicially discredited in companion matters. The Bench observed that "When final orders of this Court speak with discordant voices on an identical record, the integrity of adjudication is imperilled, and public confidence is shaken." The Court, in its reasoning, observed: The Court directed that the petitioner be acquitted and released forthwith if not required in any other case.

Background The petitioner, Surendra Koli, was convicted in Sessions Trial No. 611 of 2007 for the murder of Rimpa Haldar and sentenced to death by trial and High Court judgments which relied on a Section 164 CrPC confession and alleged recoveries from House D-5, Noida. This Court, by its 2011 judgment, affirmed the conviction and death sentence; a subsequent review was dismissed in 2014. The death sentence had been commuted to life imprisonment by the High Court on 28.01.2015, but the conviction persisted.

Twelve companion prosecutions founded on the same confession and recoveries produced a different trajectory. The High Court, by judgments dated 16.10.2023, acquitted the petitioner in those matters after finding the confessions and Section 27 recoveries inadmissible and the investigation defective; a three-judge Bench of this Court dismissed State appeals against those acquittals on 30.07.2025, rendering them final. The petitioner invoked curative jurisdiction on the ground that two sets of final orders could not lawfully coexist on the same evidentiary substratum, thereby producing a manifest miscarriage of justice.

The Court analysed procedural and evidentiary defects: the Section 164 statement was recorded after approximately sixty days of custody without meaningful legal aid; the recording Magistrate did not record statutorily required satisfaction as to voluntariness; the Investigating Officer’s proximity and influence during recording undermined voluntariness; the confession text contained references to tutoring and coercion, attracting Section 24 of the Evidence Act. Further, the alleged Section 27 discoveries were defective because excavation and public awareness of remains preceded the accused’s arrival, no contemporaneous disclosure memorandum was proved, and remand and seizure papers carried contradictions. Forensic inquiries did not yield incriminating bloodstains or transfer patterns within D-5 consistent with the prosecution theory, and purported weapon-links lacked corroborative traces. Applying the narrow curative standard articulated in Rupa Ashok Hurra, the Court found that finality must yield where a fundamental defect impeached the integrity of adjudication. The curative petition was allowed, the trial and appellate convictions set aside, the petitioner acquitted of offences under Sections 302, 364, 376 and 201 IPC, and directed to be released forthwith if not wanted in other cases. Pending SLPs arising from the 2015 commutation order stood disposed of as infructuous.

Case Details: Case No.: 2025 INSC 1308 Case Title: Surendra Koli v. The State of Uttar Pradesh & Anr. Appearances: For the Petitioner(s): Not indicated in the judgment For the Respondent(s): Not indicated in the judgment