Moninder Singh Pandher, a businessman in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, was arrested on December 29, 2006, together with his domestic worker, Surendra Koli, in the inquiry into the deaths of children and young women in the village of Nithari. Over the next seventeen years a special court in Ghaziabad sentenced him to death three times, in a case in 2009 and in two further cases in 2017. Every one of those sentences was set aside. The Allahabad High Court acquitted him in September 2009 and again on October 16, 2023, and the Supreme Court dismissed the appeals against the 2023 acquittals on July 30, 2025. He left prison on October 20, 2023.
No killing stands against him as a conviction. The case against Surendra Koli, who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in a number of cases, ran its own course through the courts.
Pandher was a businessman. He employed Koli as a domestic worker from July 2004. He was 65 years old in October 2023, when he left prison. His date of birth and his family are not on record.
Pandher and Koli were arrested on December 29, 2006. On January 10, 2007, the Uttar Pradesh government handed the investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The CBI registered 19 cases against the two men and closed three of them for lack of evidence, filing charge sheets in 16.
Pandher was not at first charged in all of these. He was charge-sheeted initially in a single case under the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act. After applications from victims' families, a court in Ghaziabad later summoned him as a co-accused in five more cases, six in all, a count his lawyer, Manisha Bhandari, also gave in 2023. The number is also given as 12 cases under a consolidated complaint. Koli was charged in all 16.
On February 13, 2009, the special CBI court in Ghaziabad convicted both men in the first of the Nithari cases, that of a 14-year-old girl who died in 2005, and sentenced both to death. The charges were murder, with other charges.
Pandher's appeal was heard first. On September 11, 2009, a bench of the Allahabad High Court, Justices Imtiyaz Murtaza and K. N. Pandey, acquitted him. The bench pointed to the lack of evidence of his direct involvement, to the alibi that he had been in Australia, and to procedural lapses, and it held that what Koli's confession attributed to Pandher could hardly be understood as incriminating under the sections invoked. The same bench upheld Koli's conviction and death sentence in that case; the Supreme Court confirmed Koli's sentence in 2011.
Pandher stayed in custody on other cases. In July 2017 the special CBI court, with Special Judge Pawan Kumar Tiwari presiding, convicted him and Koli in the case of a 20-year-old woman, a verdict handed down on July 22, and sentenced both to death on July 24. The CBI's spokesman said both men were held guilty of offenses including murder. Pandher's counsel had told the court that he was in Dehradun at the time. He had been on bail before the verdict and was taken back into custody.
On December 7, 2017, the same court convicted both men in the case of a 25-year-old woman, and on December 8 sentenced both to death.
Not every case ended in conviction. On April 6, 2019, Pandher was acquitted in a case concerning a 10-year-old girl, in which he had been summoned as a co-accused. On January 16, 2021, in the twelfth Nithari case, in which Koli received a further death sentence, Pandher was acquitted.
On May 19, 2022, the special CBI court sentenced Pandher to seven years' imprisonment in a separate case under the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act: two years on one charge and seven years on another. The court decided Koli's fourteenth case the same day. Whether the trafficking-law sentence was appealed, served or set aside is not on record.
Koli's death sentences, twelve in all, and Pandher's two came before the Allahabad High Court together. On October 16, 2023, a bench of Justices Syed Aftab Husain Rizvi and Ashwani Kumar Mishra allowed the appeals. In Pandher's two cases, the court held that the prosecution had "failed to prove the guilt of accused SK and Pandher beyond reasonable doubt" and acquitted him. His lawyer said the court had "acquitted Moninder Singh Pandher in the two appeals against him." Pandher was to be released under the Code of Criminal Procedure, unless he was wanted in another case.
The bench was severe about the inquiry. It called the investigation "botched up" and said that "basic norms of collecting evidence" had been "brazenly violated." It described the prosecution's failure as a betrayal of public trust by the agencies responsible, said the inquiry had taken "the easy course of implicating a poor servant," and found that "a fair trial has clearly eluded" the accused.
Pandher walked out of Luksar jail, in Greater Noida, on Friday, October 20, 2023, about three days after the ruling. The jail's superintendent, Arun Pratap Singh, said that the second court order relating to his release had arrived that morning and that the formalities would be done by the afternoon. Pandher left by car and did not speak to the press. Koli stayed in Dasna jail, Ghaziabad. Where Pandher now lives is not on record.
The CBI, the Uttar Pradesh government and the father of one victim challenged the High Court's acquittals. In May 2024 the Supreme Court issued notice on the challenge. On July 30, 2025, a bench of Chief Justice B. R. Gavai and Justices Satish Chandra Sharma and K. Vinod Chandran dismissed 14 appeals, saying there was no perversity in the High Court's findings. In oral remarks the Chief Justice said the High Court had done well to write such a judgment and that the trial court's view "must have been on the basis of media trial." No separate Supreme Court finding on Pandher is on record; the dismissal left the acquittals of both men in place.
In November 2025 a Supreme Court bench led by Chief Justice Gavai set aside Koli's remaining conviction on his curative petition. That is Koli's case, not Pandher's.
The count of Pandher's cases is given variously as six and as twelve. Whether the 2022 trafficking-law sentence still stands is not on record.
July 2004: employs Koli as a domestic worker.
December 29, 2006: arrested with Koli.
January 10, 2007: the Uttar Pradesh government hands the inquiry to the CBI.
February 13, 2009: sentenced to death with Koli in the first case.
September 11, 2009: the Allahabad High Court acquits him in that case.
July 22 and 24, 2017: convicted, then sentenced to death, in the case of a 20-year-old woman.
December 7 and 8, 2017: convicted, then sentenced to death, in the case of a 25-year-old woman.
April 6, 2019: acquitted in a case concerning a 10-year-old girl.
January 16, 2021: acquitted in the twelfth case.
May 19, 2022: sentenced to seven years under the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act.
October 16, 2023: the Allahabad High Court acquits him in his two capital cases.
October 20, 2023: leaves Luksar jail.
May 2024: the Supreme Court issues notice on the challenge to the acquittals.
July 30, 2025: the Supreme Court dismisses 14 appeals against the acquittals.