A day after the Meghalaya High Court upheld the bail of Sonam Raghuvanshi, the main accused in the murder of her husband Raja Raghuvanshi during their honeymoon last year, a relative of the deceased said on Tuesday his family will approach the Supreme Court to seek the cancellation of the bail.
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The Meghalaya High Court on Monday dismissed the state government’s petition seeking the cancellation of the bail granted to Sonam by a lower court on April 27.
Talking to PTI over the HC verdict, Raja’s elder brother, Vipin Raghuvanshi, said in Indore, “We will appeal to the Supreme Court for cancellation of Sonam’s bail and will soon initiate the process of filing the petition.”
Expressing dissatisfaction over the prosecution’s handling of the case, he said his family will fight the legal battle for justice on their own and will hire a private lawyer.
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He said he still cannot understand how the Meghalaya Police could have committed a legal lapse in not informing Sonam of the grounds of arrest when arresting her.
In its Monday order, the Meghalaya High Court had noted serious errors by the police in informing Sonam of the grounds of her arrest.
The HC had said, “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 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.”
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Therefore, the provisions of Article 22(1) read with Section 47(1) of the Bharatiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) have indeed been violated, it said.
Article 22(1) of the Indian Constitution guarantees an arrested person the right to be informed of the grounds for their arrest and to consult a lawyer of their choice, while Section 47(1) of the BNSS requires the police to inform the accused of the charges against them and the grounds for their arrest at the time of arrest.
Officials said that Sonam was arrested on June 9, 2025, from Ghazipur, Uttar Pradesh, on charges of conspiracy to murder her husband, Raja Raghuvanshi. She remained in judicial custody in the Shillong District Jail for more than 10 months before being granted bail.
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Raja Raghuvanshi’s family is involved in the transport business. He married Sonam on May 11 last year in Indore, and the newlyweds left for Meghalaya on May 20 for their honeymoon. However, Sonam went missing on May 23 during their honeymoon. The body of Raja Raghuvanshi was found in a deep ravine near a waterfall in the Sohra area (Cherrapunji) of East Khasi Hills district on June 2.
Sonam, her alleged lover Raj Kushwaha, and three of his friends were also arrested for their involvement in the murder.
