'Ridiculous': Meghalaya HC Slams Arrest Memo That Labelled Sonam Raghuvanshi 'Army Deserter'

Last Updated:July 02, 2026, 14:30 IST

Meghalaya HC dismissed the state's plea to cancel Sonam Raghuvanshi's bail in the Raja Raghuvanshi murder case, criticizing police for flawed arrest grounds.

The Meghalaya High Court has dismissed the state government’s plea seeking cancellation of the bail granted to Sonam Raghuvanshi, one of the accused in the Raja Raghuvanshi honeymoon murder case, while strongly criticising the manner in which the police prepared the grounds of her arrest.

The court took exception to the arrest intimation document served on Sonam after her arrest on June 9, 2025, observing that instead of explaining the allegations against her in the murder case, it incorrectly stated that she was suspected of “deserting the armed forces", committing an offence outside India and failing to notify her residence after being released as a convict.

Justice W Diengdoh noted that the document, issued at the One Stop Centre in Ghazipur and bearing Sonam’s signature, reflected a complete lack of application of mind.

“It is evident that such preparation was made without any application of mind, oblivious to the factum of the case against the accused/respondent, and nowhere is found any specific allegation or information as to what the actual charges against her are (sic)," the court observed.

“Some of the entries/contents appears to be ridiculous, for example, ‘You are suspected of being a deserter from any of the Armed Forces of the Union’ and another which reads as ‘You are suspected of being involved in an offence committed outside India’ and yet another entry which reads as ‘You, being a released convict, failed to notify your residence and any change of, or absence from, such residence after release…’," it said.

The High Court held that such glaring errors undermined the very process of arrest.

“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 to 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," the court held.

The judgment also dealt with the State’s submission that repeated references in the arrest records to Section 403(1) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, a provision that does not exist, instead of Section 103(1), which deals with murder, were merely typographical errors.

Rejecting that explanation, the court said, “The fact that such an apparent error appears at several portions of the records herein, again, the same reflects non-application of mind by the authorities concerned, which is not fitting an action on their part."

“The foundational basis for building up a case against the accused/respondent being found lacking, all other attempts to rectify the subsequent actions or process will have to fail," the judgment added.

The High Court clarified that its observations were confined to the procedure followed during Sonam’s arrest and did not affect the investigation, chargesheet, framing of charges or the ongoing trial.

Referring to its earlier decision in Labius Arengh v. State of Meghalaya, the court said the authorities concerned “would do well" to revisit the manner in which grounds of arrest are prepared and worded in future cases.

Having concluded that Sonam had not been effectively informed of the grounds of her arrest at the initial stage, the court held that it was unnecessary to examine the other submissions made by either side and upheld the trial court’s decision to grant her bail on that ground.

Raja Raghuvanshi, a 29-year-old businessman from Indore, married Sonam on May 11, 2025. The couple travelled to Shillong for their honeymoon and later went to Sohra, where they went missing on May 23. Raja’s body was later recovered from a gorge near Weisawdong Falls. Police subsequently arrested Sonam, her alleged partner Raj Kushwaha and three others accused of carrying out the killing.

Sonam was arrested in Ghazipur on June 9, 2025, and remained in judicial custody for more than ten months before being granted bail by the Additional Deputy Commissioner (Judicial), Shillong, on April 27. The Meghalaya government challenged that order before the High Court.

Arguing for the State, Advocate General A Kumar contended that the grounds of arrest had been substantially conveyed to Sonam through her brother, documents carrying her signature and a magistrate’s proceedings dated June 11, 2025, in which she had verbally acknowledged that she knew the reasons for her arrest.

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