The Supreme Court on Friday refused to set aside the bail granted to Sonam Raghuvanshi, the main accused in the alleged murder of her husband, Raja Raghuvanshi, during the couple’s honeymoon in Meghalaya last year.
The Meghalaya government had approached the apex court after the Meghalaya High Court affirmed an April order of a Shillong trial court granting bail to Raghuvanshi.
During the proceedings, the Supreme Court indicated that it had initially considered staying the bail order. However, the bench ultimately declined to intervene after being informed that Raghuvanshi had already been released.
Appearing for Sonam Raghuvanshi, her counsel argued that there was no further recovery pending in the investigation and that stringent bail conditions were already in force. “There is no recovery to be made. Already, strict conditions have been imposed. I’m already in Shillong. She cannot tamper with evidence."
Responding to the submission, the bench said, “We are trying to balance the issue. Let the trial continue."
As the defence reiterated that Raghuvanshi was in Shillong and complying with the conditions attached to her bail, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta informed the court that she had already been released.
“She is released already," the Solicitor General said.
The bench then observed, “If she is released already, we would not want to interfere."
During the hearing, Mehta also referred to the Pune murder case involving Ketan Agarwal.
“Recently, a wife killed her husband because he was wearing a wig," Mehta submitted, referring to the Siya-Ketan case. He further argued that such incidents had increased after the present case.
Concluding the matter, the bench remarked, “Prima facie, we were inclined to stay, but for the fact that she has been released already, we don’t want to be too harsh."
Sonam Raghuvanshi, a resident of Indore in Madhya Pradesh, was arrested in June last year in connection with the alleged killing of her businessman husband, Raja Raghuvanshi.
The couple had gone missing on May 23 while holidaying in Meghalaya's Sohra region. Raja Raghuvanshi's body was discovered in a deep gorge around nine days later.
On April 27, a trial court in Shillong granted bail to Sonam after finding that the investigating agency had failed to properly communicate the grounds for her arrest. The court noted that the arrest memo, justification checklist, inspection memo and extracts from the case diary repeatedly cited Section 403(1) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita instead of Section 103(1), which deals with the offence of murder.
The trial court held that the repeated reference to the incorrect provision could not be treated as a mere clerical mistake. It observed that none of the arrest-related documents informed Sonam that she was being arrested on a murder charge and further noted that the factual basis of the alleged offence had not been conveyed to her at the time of arrest.
Challenging the order before the Meghalaya High Court, the state government argued that the incorrect section mentioned in the documents was simply a typographical error that had caused no prejudice to the accused.
The high court, however, rejected the appeal, questioning how the same error had been repeated across multiple official records. Justice W Diengdoh observed that portions of the arrest documents appeared to have been copied from standard templates, including an unrelated reference identifying the accused as a deserter from the armed forces.
“It is evident that such preparation was made without any application of mind… and nowhere is found any specific allegation or information as to what the actual charges against her are," the high court had observed.
“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," it said.
Following the high court's decision, the Meghalaya government moved the Supreme Court seeking to overturn the order upholding Raghuvanshi's bail.
Also read | Modi, Japan PM denounce Pakistan-backed terrorism, urge action against LeT and JeM
Also Read | Ram Temple Row: Champat Rai, Two Others Questioned for Six Hours; More Arrests Likely
