Sonam Raghuvanshi: Meghalaya moves SC to stay bail of honeymoon-murder accused

THe Meghalaya law on th moved the sublime margaret court seeking an straightaway stay on the bail granted to Sonam Raghuvanshi, the prime accused in the alleged murder of her husband Raja Raghuvanshi during their honeymoon in Meghalaya, contending that she may flee from justice if released.Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the state, mentioned the matter for urgent listing before a vacation bench of justices MM Sundresh and Sheel Nagu and sought an early hearing on Friday.“The high court has granted bail stating that grounds of arrest were not provided to her...it was a mere typographical error though. We want the order of bail to be stayed. She will abscond if released,” Mehta submitted.The bench agreed to consider the state’s request for an expedited listing.The appeal comes days after the Meghalaya high court upheld an order of a Shillong trial court granting bail to Sonam on the ground that the police had failed to effectively communicate the grounds of her arrest, thereby violating the procedural safeguards available to an arrested person.A single judge bench of justice W Diengdoh had on June 29 dismissed the state’s plea challenging the April 2026 order of the additional deputy commissioner (judicial), Shillong, holding that the defect in the arrest procedure went to the root of the matter.The high court had rejected the state’s contention that repeated references in the arrest documents to Section 403(1) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), instead of Section 103(1) dealing with murder, were merely typographical mistakes.In a detailed judgment, the court went further and found that the document meant to intimate Sonam of the grounds of her arrest had been prepared “without any application of mind” and contained wholly irrelevant allegations having no connection with the case.Among the grounds communicated to Sonam, the high court noted, were that she was suspected of being “a deserter from any of the Armed Forces of the Union”, of committing “an offence outside India”, and of failing to notify her residence after release as a convicted prisoner.“If this is the manner in which the intimation of the grounds of arrest is made, the same reflects a total non-application of judicious mind on the part of the arresting agency,” noted the high court, adding that such glaring errors struck at the very foundation of the arrest process and justified the grant of bail.It also rejected the prosecution’s submission that the repeated reference to the wrong penal provision across multiple arrest-related documents was an innocuous clerical error.“The foundational basis for building up a case against the accused/respondent being found lacking, all other attempts to rectify the subsequent actions or process will have to fail,” the high court had observed.At the same time, justice Diengdoh clarified that the findings were confined to the legality of the arrest procedure and did not cast any doubt on the investigation, the chargesheet or the trial itself.The state, represented before the high court by advocate general Amit Kumar, had argued that Sonam was fully aware of the allegations against her and that no real prejudice had been caused despite the defects in the arrest documents. It maintained that the irregularities were curable and could not justify bail in a murder case.The case relates to the murder of 29-year-old Indore businessman Raja Raghuvanshi, who had travelled to Meghalaya with his wife Sonam for their honeymoon in May 2025. The couple went missing after checking out of a homestay in Nongriat on May 23. Raja’s body was subsequently recovered from a gorge near Weisawdong Falls in Sohra, while Sonam was traced days later in Uttar Pradesh.The Meghalaya Police have since filed a chargesheet running into more than 700 pages, alleging that the murder was a premeditated conspiracy orchestrated by Sonam in connivance with her alleged lover Raj Kushwaha and others.