When the Supreme Court on Tuesday acquitted Surendra Koli in the final surviving Nithari case, it did more than just erase a conviction — it exposed one of the worst failures of India’s criminal justice system. Nearly two decades after the discovery of human remains from a drain behind a Noida bungalow shocked the country, no one now stands convicted for the rape and killing of at least 16 women and children. For the families who lost their children, there is no closure; instead, there is the confirmation of a collapse.

The apex court’s judgment, delivered by a bench comprising Chief Justice of India Bhushan R Gavai and justices Surya Kant and Vikram Nath, held that the 2011 conviction of Koli could not stand when he had been acquitted in 12 identical cases based on the same evidence, confession, and flawed investigation. To let one conviction survive, it said, would be a “travesty of justice.”

In doing so, the court upheld the principle that the rule of law must be consistent. But its verdict also makes stark the central flaw in the handling of the cases — the complete breakdown of investigative credibility, which has left the Nithari parents with nothing but unanswered questions.

In late 2006, what began as routine drain cleaning in Sector 31 of Noida turned into a nightmare. A child playing cricket had earlier spotted a human hand in a narrow strip between houses D5 and D6. When the drain outside the bungalows was dug up in December that........

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