Shillong, June 29 (IANS) Meghalaya High Court on Monday upheld a Shillong court’s order granting bail to Sonam Raghuvanshi, the prime accused in the sensational Raja Raghuvanshi honeymoon murder case, dismissing the Meghalaya government’s appeal against the lower court’s decision.

A single bench of Justice W. Diengdoh rejected the state’s challenge to the April 2026 order of the Additional Deputy Commissioner (Judicial), Shillong, which had granted bail to Sonam after finding serious procedural lapses in her arrest.

The High Court had reserved its verdict on June 10 after hearing detailed arguments from both sides over several days. The detailed judgment is awaited.

The Shillong court granted bail to Sonam on the ground that the investigating officers failed to properly communicate the grounds of her arrest, thereby prejudicing her defence.

The court 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 lower court had observed that the same mistake appeared consistently across all documents and that Sonam was never formally informed that she had been arrested for the offence of murder.

The Meghalaya government challenged the order before the High Court, contending that the procedural lapse had caused no actual prejudice to the accused.

Appearing for the state, Advocate General Amit Kumar argued that Sonam was fully aware of the murder charge as she had signed the arrest documents, appeared before the magistrate during remand proceedings and had been represented by legal counsel from the outset.

The state also relied on a Supreme Court judgment to argue that such procedural irregularities are curable defects in the absence of demonstrable prejudice. However, the High Court declined to interfere with the Shillong court’s order, thereby allowing Sonam to continue on bail.

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.

The couple went missing during their visit to Sohra (Cherrapunji), triggering a massive search operation. Raja’s body was later recovered from a deep gorge near Weisawdong Falls with multiple injuries, while Sonam remained untraceable for several days.

Subsequent investigations by the Meghalaya Police alleged that Sonam had conspired with her alleged lover and hired assailants to eliminate Raja during the honeymoon.

She was later traced and arrested, while several other accused were also apprehended from different states. After the investigation was completed, the police filed a chargesheet before the competent court, and the trial proceedings are currently underway.

–IANS

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