Honeymoon murder: Meghalaya High Court upholds trial court bail to accused wife

The Meghalaya High Court on Monday upheld a trial court order granting bail to Sonam Raghuvanshi, the Indore woman who was arrested last year for allegedly conspiring to murder her husband during their honeymoon in East Khasi Hills [State of Meghalaya v Sonam Raguvanshi]..The Court was hearing the Meghalaya government's challenge to the April 27 order of the District and Sessions Court at East Khasi Hills, which had granted bail to Sonam after finding that the police had failed to effectively communicate the grounds of her arrest.Justice W Diengdoh upheld that finding and observed that the grounds of arrest served to Sonam were prepared mechanically and failed to disclose the specific allegations against her. "It is evident that such preparation was made without any application of mind, oblivious to the factum of the case against the accused/respondent and nowhere is found any specific allegation or information as to what are the actual charges against her," said the Court..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.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."Some of the entries/contents appears to be ridiculous. 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, which strikes at the root of the process of arrest of an accused person, leading to this Court to come to the conclusion that the arrestee does have a strong case to contend that no such effective grounds have ever been intimated to her at the initial stage of her arrest," said the Court..Additionally, the Court rejected the State's contention that the police had substantially complied with the law by informing Sonam orally or through remand proceedings before magistrate. .The High Court rejected the prosecution's contention that the omission was merely a clerical error. It found that the defect appeared consistently across multiple documents.It held that although repeated reference to Section 403 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita instead of Section 103 (murder) 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..Ultimately, the High Court found no reason to interfere with the trial court's order.However, before dismissing the State's plea, the Court urged investigating agencies to improve their arrest procedures. "Much has been said about how the concerned authorities are to prepare the grounds of arrest and how the same are to be effectively communicated to the arrestee, as has been observed by this Court in the case of Labius Arengh (supra), it would do well for the said authorities to have a re-look into this aspect of this matter as far as preparation of proper and specific grounds of arrest is concerned," the High Court suggested..Advocate General A Kumar, Special Public Prosecutor N Khera, advocates R Kharkrang, AS Pandey, AH Kharwanlang (Additional Public Prosecutor), A Malik, I Syiemlieh and L Kumar appeared for the State of Meghalaya.Advocates S Thapa and S Chanda represented Sonam Raghuvanshi..[Read Judgment]