Honeymoon Murder Case | Meghalaya High Court Upholds Shillong Court Order Granting Bail To Sonam Raghuwanshi

The Meghalaya High Court today UPHELD an April 2026 order by a Shillong court granting bail to Sonam Raghuvanshi, the prime suspect in the chilling May 2025 "honeymoon murder" of her husband, Raja Raghuvanshi.With this, a bench of Justice W Diengdoh DISMISSED the State's appeal challenging bail granted to Raghuwanshi. The Court had reserved its verdict in the matter on June 10 after hearing arguments from both sides for over 10 days.Dismissing the petition, the High Court observed that there was no initial effective intimation of the grounds of arrest as far as the accused/respondent is concerned. Thus, the bench found the Trial Court to be fully justified in releasing her on bail.It may be noted that Raghuwanshi was granted the relief by the Addl. DC (Judicial), Shillong, primarily on the grounds that the police had failed to effectively communicate to her the grounds for her arrest, thereby causing prejudice to her defence. Essentially, the Court had found that in all the documents pertaining to the petitioner, including the checklist for justification of arrest and the case diary extract, the police had erroneously referred to Section 403(1) BNS instead of Section 103(1) BNS (Punishment for Murder). Shillong Court had noted that in none of the documents was the petitioner intimated that she was actually being arrested for the much graver offence under Section 103(1) BNS. The Court further rejected the contention that it was a clerical error. "...such error cannot occur in all documents. Infact, in all documents pertaining to Sonam Raghuvanshi, from the check list for justification of arrest, memo of arrest, inspection memo, intimation of rights of the arrested person, extract of case dairy, the sections referred to in all the documents is Sohra PS Case No. 7/2025 u/s 403(1)/238(a)/309(6)/3(6) BNS. In none of the documents has the petitioner been intimated that she is arrested for the offence u/s 103(1) BNS. Even in the formats of the intimation of grounds of arrest it is observed that specific facts constituting the offence has not been communicated to the accused person," the Court had observed.In its final judgment, the High Court pointed out that the template-based documentation used by the Police while arresting Raghuwanshi highlighted a severe lack of diligence. Taking into account the arrest checklist, Justice Diengdoh observed: "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." The Court noted that several fields left on the template were entirely absurd in the context of the case. It noted thus:"Some of the entries/contents appears to be ridiculous, for example, “You are suspected of being a deserter from any of the Armed Forces of the Union” and another which reads as “You are suspected of being involved in an offence committed outside India” and yet another entry which reads as “You, being a released convict, failed to notify your residence and any change of, or absence from, such residence after release, as required under Section 394 BNSS and thus, violated the rules framed thereunder by the State Government."Furthermore, the Court noted that even if citing a non-existent "Section 403(1) BNS" instead of Section 103(1) was a typographical slip, its recurrence across multiple core documents cannot be swept away. The judge observed: "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." Ultimately, pointing out that constitutional rights under Article 22(1) were completely bypassed in the present case, the Court opined that the manner of intimation of the grounds of arrest reflects a total non-application of a judicious mind on the part of the arresting agency, which strikes at the root of the process of arrest of an accused person.Therefore, the provision of Article 22(1) read with Section 47(1) BNSS have indeed been violated, the bench concluded while upholding the bail order. State's arguments Appearing for the State, Advocate General, Senior Advocate Amit Kumar had submitted that there was not a single line in Raghuwanshi's Fourth Bail application indicating that any actual prejudice had been caused by the procedural error. He had also argued that it was an admitted position that a typographical error (mentioning Section 403 instead of 103 BNS) occurred in the arrest documents. AG Kumar, however, maintained that Raghuwanshi was fully aware of the serious charges against her, including murder, as evidenced by her signature on arrest memos and the remand orders. AG Kumar had further relied on the Apex Court in the case of State of Karnataka v. Sri Darshan Etc 2025 LiveLaw (SC) 801, wherein it was held that in the...

Honeymoon Murder Case | Meghalaya High Court Upholds Shillong Court Order Granting Bail To Sonam Raghuwanshi

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Honeymoon Murder Case | Meghalaya High Court Upholds Shillong Court Order Granting Bail To Sonam Raghuwanshi

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