The Allahabad High Court today acquitted businessman Moninder Singh Pandher in one of the Nithari serial killing case, setting aside the death sentence awarded to him by a lower court, but upheld the capital punishment handed down to his domestic help Surinder Koli.

The order was passed by a Division Bench comprising Justice Imtiyaz Murtaza and Justice K N Pandey which observed that "no evidence has been placed on record to show that Pandher was guilty". Pandher and Koli were awarded death sentence by a special court in Ghaziabad on February 13 this year for the murder of 14-year-old girl Rimpa Halder at his house in Noida.