New Delhi: Bail granted to Sonam Raghuvanshi, who is accused of murdering her husband Raja Raghuvanshi during their honeymoon in Meghalaya last year, was cancelled by the Supreme Court today.
A bench of justices M M Sundresh and P B Varale said the allegations against Sonam are “quite serious”, adding that she would be at liberty to apply for bail again after six months if the trial proceedings are not completed.
The court further granted three weeks to Sonam to surrender before police.
During the hearing, the top court flagged the importance of joint family systems in the country – agreeing with Solicitor General of India, Tushar Mehta’s, remarks. “We will see a rise in conflict with personal laws with the rise in matrimonial disputes. The joint family system ensured that in case of problems within couples, elders solved it. In cases of nuclear families, they are alone, and so, separations are on a rise. So is depression,” Mehta said.
To this, Justice M M Sundresh said, “The present generation may be more knowledgeable than us, but in terms of dealing with pressure, they are more vulnerable.”
Raja and Sonam got married on May 11 last year. Nine days later, they left for their honeymoon in Meghalaya on May 20 – with a one-way ticket in hand. The couple roamed around in the Northeast for three days before going “missing”. When their family members could not reach them, they reached out to the police. What initially started as a probe to find the couple turned into a murder investigation when Raja’s body was found in a gorge on June 2, nearly 10 days after the brutal crime.
On the night of June 7, Sonam was found in an unconscious state at a ‘dhaba’ in Ghazipur. She was taken to the Ghazipur Medical College for treatment, where she surrendered before the police.
Sonam’s lover, Raj Singh Kushwaha, was also subsequently arrested.
After spending about 10 months in judicial custody in Shillong District Jail, a trial court granted her bail on April 27 this year. The court observed that the investigating agency failed to properly communicate the grounds of her arrest. It noted that all arrest-related documents, including the arrest memo, justification checklist, inspection memo and case diary extract, incorrectly mentioned Section 403(1) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita instead of Section 103(1), which deals with the offence of murder.
The court held that the repeated error could not be treated as a mere clerical mistake, as none of the documents informed her that she was being arrested for the offence of murder. It also observed that the specific facts constituting the alleged offence had also not been communicated to her at the time of arrest.
The Meghalaya government then challenged the trial court’s order in the high court, saying the error was purely typographical and had caused no prejudice to the accused. The high court, however, dismissed the appeal, questioning why the same error appeared repeatedly across multiple official documents.
The Meghalaya government had then moved the Supreme Court, challenging the high court’s decision.
Earlier this week, the Supreme Court gave Sonam two options – surrender or get bail cancelled.
“There are two options. Either we will consider and pass an order on merit. Or we will pass an order for you to surrender in the interregnum till the witnesses are examined, then we will see it on merit. We don’t want to surprise you. The second option may be better for you. Take instructions and come back,” the court had said.
