The Supreme Court Tuesday set aside the conviction of Surendra Koli in a case of rape and murder of a teenage girl, one of the many cases that arose out of the Nithari serial killings.

A bench of Chief Justice BR Gavai, Justice Surya Kant, and Justice Vikram Nath reversed his conviction while allowing his curative petition, and directed that he be released if not wanted in any other case.

The Nithari killings came to light with the discovery of skeletal remains of eight children from a drain behind businessman Moninder Singh Pandher’s house in Noida on December 29, 2006. Koli worked at Pandher’s house.

Further digging around Pandher’s house led to the recovery of additional skeletal remains. Most of these remains were those of poor children and young women who had gone missing from the

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