The Supreme Court cancelled Sonam Raghuvanshi’s bail in the Meghalaya honeymoon murder case, holding she was not entitled to remain at liberty during trial, and directed the prime accused to surrender before the authorities within three weeks.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court cancelled the bail granted to Sonam Raghuvanshi, the prime accused in the alleged murder of her husband Raja Raghuvanshi during their honeymoon in Meghalaya, holding that allowing her to remain at liberty would impede the trial, and directing her to surrender within three weeks
A Bench of Justices M.M. Sundresh and P.B. Varale allowed the State of Meghalaya’s appeal and set aside the June 29, 2026 order of the Meghalaya High Court, which had declined to disturb the trial court’s grant of bail.
Recording the basis of its conclusion, the Bench observed that “the continued enlargement of the respondent will hinder the ongoing trial.”
However, the Court ruled that she is not entitled to bail.
The Bench said,
“On facts we find that respondent is not entitled to bail. It is not as if the respondent was not served with the grounds of arrest. There is difference between non service and giving adequate reasons thereunder. While the first category might vitiate the arrest, in the second one has to see the prejudice,”
The Court did not, however, shut the door entirely. It granted Raghuvanshi liberty to apply afresh for bail before the trial court should the proceedings not be concluded within six months, clarifying that neither Thursday’s order nor the earlier orders rejecting bail would stand in the way of such an application being considered on its own merits.
The State informed the Court that the charge sheet had been filed and that the case had reached the stage of framing of charges.
The appeal turned on a narrow but consequential point of criminal procedure. The Meghalaya High Court had faulted the investigation on the ground that the grounds of arrest were not properly communicated, noting that the arrest memo cited Section 403 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 rather than Section 103, which prescribes the punishment for murder.
The High Court treated this as reflecting a non-application of mind.
Appearing for the State, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta submitted that the reference to Section 403 was no more than a typographical slip, that the grounds of arrest had in fact been supplied to the accused when she was arrested, and that this had been recorded by the Magistrate at Ghazipur, Uttar Pradesh, while granting transit remand.
The Supreme Court accepted the State’s contention that the alleged defect in communicating the grounds of arrest was a curable irregularity, capable of being remedied by a fresh arrest. In doing so, the Bench drew a distinction between a case where the grounds of arrest are not supplied at all and one where the reasons furnished are said to be inadequate the latter, on the Court’s approach, falling short of vitiating the arrest.
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The Bench further took the view that an objection of this nature ought to have been taken at the earliest available opportunity. It noted that Raghuvanshi had not raised the plea of non-supply of the grounds of arrest in any of her three preceding bail applications, each of which had been rejected.
Senior Advocate Ardhendumauli Prasad, appearing for Raghuvanshi, resisted the State’s plea. He submitted that the High Court had already required his client to remain in Shillong and to cooperate with the trial, and argued that the proceedings were likely to be protracted given that the prosecution proposed to examine more than fifty witnesses.
In her response filed earlier before the Court, Raghuvanshi had maintained that she was falsely implicated, that the case rested on circumstantial evidence, and that mere allegations do not establish an offence, the prosecution being obliged to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt at trial.
Background of the case
The case concerns the death of Raja Raghuvanshi, a businessman from Indore, who travelled to Meghalaya with Sonam on their honeymoon shortly after their marriage in May 2025. He went missing during the trip, and his body was recovered from a gorge near Sohra on June 2, 2025.
Investigators allege that the killing was planned before the couple left Indore, in conspiracy with Sonam’s associate Raj Kushwaha and three other men, and that the assault took place near Wei Sawdong before the body was thrown into a gorge. The missing person’s complaint that led to the registration of the FIR was lodged by the deceased’s brother, Vipin Raghuvanshi. Sonam was arrested at Ghazipur, Uttar Pradesh, on June 9, 2025.
A charge sheet was filed in September 2025 against five accused, supplemented in February to add arms-related charges against a sixth.
The State’s petition asserted that at the time of arrest she signed several documents, including the memorandum of arrest and an intimation of rights, each indicating that she had been apprised of the reasons for her arrest, and that a Magistrate at Sohra who examined her days later likewise recorded her acknowledgement of the grounds.
Its case was that although one of seven contemporaneous documents carried the erroneous section number, the remaining documents all bearing her signature correctly set out the grounds.
All of these remain allegations. Charges are yet to be framed, and nothing has been established against any of the accused.
Case Title: State of Meghalaya v. Sonam Raghuvanshi @ Bitti @ Bittu