New Delhi: Days after a Pune woman allegedly pushed her fiance into a gorge, the Meghalaya High Court Monday upheld a trial court order granting bail to Sonam Raghuvanshi, accused of killing her husband on their honeymoon in 2025.
Taking note of the procedural lapse—the accused woman was not supplied with the grounds for arrest—a bench of Justice W. Diengdoh said, “Grounds of arrest as contemplated under Article 22(1) must be furnished in writing upon the arrestee at the time of his arrest or at least prior to two hours before remand.”
Article 22(1) of the Constitution states that no person who is arrested shall be detained in custody without being informed, as soon as may be, of the grounds for the arrest.
The court even rejected the state’s submission that Sonam Raghuvanshi was furnished with the “reasons”, terming them as “ridiculous”. Whatever reasons were given to her were given after the arrest, and secondly there was no application of mind by the police in that communication, the court held.
The police documents disclosing the ground for Sonam’s arrest stated she was suspected of being a deserter from the Armed Forces and even suspected of being involved in an offence committed outside India.
The case which infamously came to be known as the “honeymoon murder” dates back to May 2025, when Sonam married businessman Raja Raghuvanshi. On their honeymoon in Meghalaya, Raja disappeared from their homestay. Ten days after his disappearance, Raja’s body was found near a gorge situated close to the Wei Sawdong Falls in Meghalaya.
The police drew up a case naming Sonam Raghuvanshi as the prime accused, alleging that she had hatched a conspiracy with contract killers to murder Raja on their honeymoon. Soon after, she was arrested.
How the case reached Meghalaya HC
However, on 27 April this year, the trial court granted her bail, and she was released from judicial custody, primarily on the basis of her not being informed of the grounds for arrest.
The Meghalaya government appealed in HC and argued that Sonam’s brother was informed of the grounds of arrest, and six documents relating to the case were shared with her on 9 June, 2025, suggesting she was aware of the grounds for arrest.
This was her third bail application, the state government had argued, while pointing out that Sonam Raghuvanshi participated in the proceedings since the day she was sent to custody, and knew the reasons for her arrest. After almost 10 months of arrest, she could not feign ignorance, the government said.
The state government also argued that the trial court had failed to consider the nature and gravity of the offence of the honeymoon murder, and the likelihood of Sonam influencing witnesses who were being examined.
Defending the trial court order, Sonam’s counsel told the HC that the trial court order had no infirmity or illegality, and was passed after taking into consideration the law surrounding a citizen’s life and liberty. He also told the court that the police had acted in a “callous” manner by keeping Sonam in the dark about the nature of offences with which she was being charged.
Law on supplying grounds for arrest
The court relied on the fundamental right enshrined under Article 22(1) which says that no one can be detained in custody without being informed of the grounds for arrest, along with Section 47 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), which also mandates supplying the accused with grounds for arrest, when arresting them without a warrant.
The journey indeed began with the Pankaj Bansal case, where the Supreme Court in 2023 upheld the mandate of compulsory intimation of grounds for arrest to the arrestee in writing at the time of his arrest, adding that the rationale behind this was to ensure the arrestee can adequately prepare his/her defence.
Although this principle was propounded under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act 2002, it was reinforced in the 2024 case of Prabir Purkayastha vs State, where the Supreme Court extended the scope of the dictum from the PMLA Act in Pankaj Bansal to the UAPA Act and all other criminal offences, the court noted in its 29 June ruling.
In Mihir Rajesh Shah vs. State of Maharashtra, the Supreme Court added that grounds for arrest must be furnished in writing and “in the language known to the arrestee”.
In the present case, however, the court noted that the accused, Sonam, was only issued communication at the One Stop Centre, Gazipur, on 9 June last year, after her arrest, and was made to sign it. “You have committed a cognisable offence in the presence of a police officer. You are reasonably suspected to be proclaimed offender,” were some of the contents of this communication issued to her, the court noted. This is what was given in place of the grounds for arrest.
Terming this “communication” as ridiculous, the court said that it was prepared without any application of mind, oblivious to the facts of the case. There was no information about any specific allegations or information about the actual charges against her, it said.
Some of the entries/contents appear to be ridiculous, the court said, adding that the document reads, “You are suspected of being a deserter from any of the Armed Forces of the Union” and another which reads, “You are suspected of being involved in an offence committed outside India”.
Saying that Sonam’s rights under Article 22(1) and Section 47 of the BNSS were violated, the court said if this was the manner in which intimation of the grounds for arrest was made, it reflected a total non-application of judicious mind on the part of the arresting agency.
This strikes at the root of the process of arrest of an accused person, the court said, while adding that the grounds of arrest not being communicated to her was a valid reason for the trial court to grant her bail.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
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