SC issues notice on Meghalaya plea against Sonam's bail

The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice on a plea filed by the Meghalaya government challenging the High Court's order upholding the grant of bail to Sonam Raghuvanshi, the prime accused in the sensational Raja Raghuvanshi honeymoon murder case, but declined to stay the operation of the impugned order as the accused has already been released.  

A Bench of Justices M.M. Sundresh and Sheel Nagu directed Sonam Raghuvanshi to file a counter-affidavit and posted the matter for further hearing next week.

"We have a reservation, prima facie, about the High Court order. We will see how the trial proceeds. The fact remains that she was informed about the grounds. In the earlier bail pleas, she did not raise this issue," the Justice Sundresh-led Bench observed during the hearing.

Appearing for the Meghalaya government, Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta submitted that the courts below had failed to consider relevant material and that it was not a case where the grounds of arrest had not been communicated to the accused.

SG Mehta informed the apex court that the trial had commenced and more than 90 prosecution witnesses were yet to be examined, adding that the impugned judgment set a "wrong precedent".

After hearing the submissions, the apex court asked that counsel appearing for Sonam Raghuvanshi file a counter-affidavit. "Considering the submission that the order of bail has been given effect to, we are inclined to list the matter for further hearing on next Thursday," the Justice Sundresh-led Bench said in its order, indicating the top court's reluctance to stay the bail order after the accused had already been released. 

The Meghalaya government has challenged the High Court's order upholding the grant of bail to Sonam Raghuvanshi in the murder case.

On June 29, the Meghalaya High Court upheld a Shillong court's order granting bail to Sonam, dismissing the state government's appeal against the lower court's decision.

A single-judge Bench of Justice W. Diengdoh had refused to interfere with the April 2026 order of the Additional Deputy Commissioner (Judicial), Shillong, granting bail after finding serious procedural lapses in the arrest of the accused.

The Shillong court had held that the investigating officers failed to properly communicate the grounds of arrest, thereby prejudicing Sonam's defence. It observed that all arrest-related documents, including the arrest memo, checklist for justification of arrest, inspection memo, intimation of rights and extracts of the case diary, incorrectly mentioned Section 403(1) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) instead of Section 103(1), which deals with the offence of murder.

Rejecting the prosecution's contention that the error was merely typographical, the trial court held that the same mistake appeared consistently across all arrest documents and that Sonam was never formally informed that she had been arrested for the offence of murder.

The Meghalaya government had argued before the High Court that the procedural lapse caused no actual prejudice to the accused and relied on a Supreme Court judgment to contend that such irregularities are curable defects in the absence of demonstrable prejudice.

The case relates to the murder of Indore-based businessman Raja Raghuvanshi, who had travelled to Meghalaya with his wife, Sonam, for their honeymoon shortly after their marriage in May 2025. According to the Meghalaya Police, Raja's body was later recovered from a gorge near Weisawdong Falls.

The prosecution alleges that Sonam conspired with her alleged lover and hired assailants to eliminate him during the honeymoon. After completion of the investigation, the police filed a chargesheet before the competent court, and the trial is presently underway.