The Supreme Court on Friday sought the response of Indore resident Sonam Raghuvanshi on a plea seeking cancellation of her bail in the case of murder of her husband during their honeymoon in East Khasi Hills [State of Meghalaya v Sonam Raguvanshi].

A bench of Justices MM Sundresh and Sheel Nagu issued notice to Raghuvanshi on a plea filed by State of Meghalaya challenging the bail granted to her by the trial court and upheld by the Meghalaya High Court.

Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta, appearing for the State of Meghalaya, said that it was a "shocking case"

"Both of them go to Meghalaya for honeymoon. It's a pre determined murder. Wife takes husband to some hilly area.. participates in assault ..he was killed and then dead body was thrown into the gorge. Three assailants brought by the lady and she herself killed him. She was arrested from UP after she absconded. Magistrate says he was satisfied that grounds of arrest was communicated," the SG submitted.

The Court was initially inclined to stay the High Court order but did not eventually pass any such order today after noting that the woman has already been released from jail.

"If she is released already then we cannot order her arrest again. We thought she was not released," the Bench remarked orally.

It then kept the case for hearing on July 9 while directing the woman to file her response.

"Solicitor Submits that courts have not considered relevant material. Apart from serious allegations made and earlier rejection of bail applications, it is submitted that it is not a case of not informing grounds of arrest. Respondent seeks time to file reply. Order granting bail has been given effect to and this we are inclined to hear this on next Thursday," the Court directed.

As the hearing drew to a close, SG Mehta pointed out that such incidents were on the rise.

"These incidents are rising. One woman also killed her partner because he was wearing a wig," he said.

Sonam Raghuvanshi is accused of conspiring to murder her husband, Raja Raghuvanshi, during their honeymoon in East Khasi Hills in May 2025. Investigators allege that the murder was carried out with the help of her lover Raj Kushwaha and three others.

Sonam was arrested in June 2025, has since been charge-sheeted and is currently facing trial.

In its April 27 order, the trial court held that the investigating agency had committed procedural lapses while arresting Sonam Raghuvanshi. It noted that the police had failed to properly communicate the charges to her.

“In none of the documents has the petitioner been intimated that she is arrested for the offence u/s 103(1) BNS,” the trial court observed.

In this regard, the trial court had said that there was that a typographical error in the memo of arrest, which mentioned Section 403 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita instead of Section 103 (murder). This meant she had not been correctly informed of the grounds of her arrest, the trial court said.

Hence, it granted bail to her.

The State then approached the High Court against the same.

In its detailed judgment, the High Court examined the standard-format "intimation of grounds of arrest" issued to Sonam at the time of her arrest.

The Court found that the it was a generic checklist containing several unrelated grounds without explaining the factual basis of the allegations against her.

It also noted that several entries included irrelevant options such as suspicion of being a deserter from the armed forces, involvement in offences committed outside India or failure by a released convict to report a change of residence.

Pertinently, it held that although repeated reference to Section 403 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita instead of Section 103 could be described as a typographical error, the recurrence of the mistake across several records reflected a lack of due application of mind by the investigating agency.

The State the approached the Supreme Court.

It argued that the High Court's finding was unsustainable both in law and on facts. According to the plea, Raghuvanshi was informed of the grounds of her arrest through five separate contemporaneous documents bearing her own signature.

The petition pointed out that the transit remand order passed by the Chief Judicial Magistrate at Ghazipur on the day of her arrest itself recorded that she was aware of the grounds of arrest, and that a subsequent order of the Judicial Magistrate First Class at Sohra recorded that she personally told the court she knew why she had been arrested.

The plea also stated that Raghuvanshi never raised the issue of the grounds of arrest not being communicated to her in her first three bail applications, and that no prejudice on account of the typographical error was pleaded even in the fourth application on which she was granted bail. Her previous bail applications had correctly cited the relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, including Section 103, it was pointed out.

The High Court ignored these and upheld bail on a hyper-technical ground, it was argued.

SG Mehta said that the grounds of arrest were clearly communicated to the accused and the same was recorded by the Magistrate.

"It was noted that there is prima facie material to beleive that accused was involved and could abscond. Please see the third order of bail (rejection)," Mehta said.

"See we have our primary facie reservations about the High Court order. We will stay this order and see how the trial progresses. You have been examined about grounds of arrest. In earlier bail pleas you have not raised these issues. This is not a case where grounds of detention is not served. These facts remain," Justice Sundresh initially remarked.

However, the counsel for the accused said that grounds of arrest were not communicated.

"She was arrested before the transit order was passed. No grounds were communicated at all," it was submitted on behalf of the accused.

"Suppose you are given protection today.. will law debar the arrest tomorrow. Let us see how trial proceeds. However heinous the crime is, bail is the rule jail is an exception. So that we will consider," the Court said.

"Stay order will cancel my bail..I am in Shillong," the lawyer said.

"Not cancel, it is just for putting the bail on hold," Justice Sundresh remarked.

"But you did flee to UP," the SG said.

The Bench subsequently said that if the accused has been released, then the Court will not order her arrest again.

"We thought she was not released. When she is released, we cannot pass an order to seek her return back to jail," the Court said.

The Court eventually sought the response of the accused and posted the case for hearing on July 9.

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