New Delhi: The Supreme Court today extended till October 29 the stay on execution of death sentence of Nithari rapist-cum-serial killer Surinder Koli.
A bench headed by justice H L Dattu posted the case for hearing on October 29, on Koli's plea seeking review of apex court's verdict upholding his conviction and death sentence in one of the murder cases.
On September 8, the bench, also comprising justice A R Dave, had stayed the execution of death sentence of Koli for killing children in a house in Nithari village in Noida near here in 2006, for a period of one week.
The plea on behalf of 42-year-old Koli was moved by a team of lawyers led by senior advocate Indira Jaising and was mentioned before the bench after midnight and the order was passed at 1:40 AM, hours before his execution.
Koli was to be hanged on the early morning of September 8, in Meerut jail, where he has been kept in a high-security barrack.
The lawyers had sought review of the apex court's July 24, 2014 order dismissing the plea to stay the execution of death sentence awarded to Koli.
While seeking stay of execution of the capital punishment, Jaising, along with advocate Yug Choudhary and others, had referred to the September 2 verdict of the apex court in which it had held that the review plea of condemned prisoners must be given an open court hearing.
Koli, the self-confessed cannibal was found guilty of murdering a series of young women and children at a bungalow near Delhi.
Koli had asked the Supreme Court to review its decision that sentenced him to death. His plea was heard by the court today.
His execution was stayed for a week on Monday by judges after a landmark ruling by the Supreme Court which said every death-row convict has the "fundamental right" to a fresh appeal in an open court.
He was sentenced to death by the Supreme Court in 2005 and was set to be hanged between September 7 and 12 in Meerut in Uttar Pradesh.
Following the stay on his execution, he reportedly asked prison officials if hanging is "painful." "He (Koli) is enquiring from prison staff about the date when he would be hung and was the whole procedure a painful and long one," news agency IANS quoted a jail official as saying.
Koli had confessed to having sex with his dead victims and also eating some of their body parts.
He worked at the home of Maninder Singh Pandher in the area of Nithari in Noida on the outskirts of Delhi where as many as 19 girls are feared to have been raped and killed. He was sentenced to hang for murdering 14-year-old Rimpa Halder in 2005.
He has already been convicted of five cases of murder, rape and cannibalism while 14 more cases are still pending, although the death sentence only relates to the killing of Rimpa.
