Said Haldar's lawyer Khalid Khan: 'We will go to the Supreme court against the Allahabad High Court judgment.'

Pandher, 52, and Koli, 38, had challenged the death sentences awarded to them on Feb 13 this year by the trial court in Ghaziabad.

The high court, while upholding the death sentence of Koli, who had admitted to have killed the girl, observed that the crime committed by him was 'gruesome, heinous and cold-blooded' and 'we would not forebear from expressing that the accused Surendra Koli is a menace to society'.

It observed: 'The depraved and brutish acts of Koli call for only one sentence and that is death sentence. We agree with the reasoning of the sessions judge awarding death sentence and affirm the same award to Koli.'

According to the prosecution, Koli was suffering from necrophilia (habit to have sex with the dead) and had even eaten body parts of his victims.

The killings came to light with the discovery of skeletal remains of children from a drain behind Pandher's bungalow in late December 2006 leading to the arrest of Pandher and Koli.

The conviction in the murder of 14-year-old Haldar, one of the 19 victims who were sexually exploited and murdered at Pandher's house at Nithari, was the first one to be pronounced against the duo.

While Koli was found guilty by the court under various sections of Indian Penal Code for murder and rape, Pandher was convicted on the same charges along with Section 120-B (criminal conspiracy).