The Meghalaya High Court has refused to interfere with the bail granted to Sonam Raghuvanshi, accused in the Raja Raghuvanshi murder case, holding that the investigating agency failed to effectively communicate the grounds of her arrest in violation of Article 22(1) of the Constitution and Section 47 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS). The Court found that the arrest memo was prepared in a mechanical manner using a generic template that bore no nexus to the allegations against the accused, reflecting a complete non-application of mind.
JusticeW. Diengdoh dismissed the State of Meghalaya’s petition challenging the trial court’s order granting bail to Sonam Raghuvanshi, holding that no case was made out to invoke the High Court’s inherent jurisdiction to set aside the order.
The case arose from the State’s challenge to an order dated April 27, 2026, passed by the Additional Deputy Commissioner (Judicial), granting bail to Sonam Raghuvanshi in the Raja Raghuvanshi murder case. The trial court had enlarged her on bail primarily on the ground that the “grounds of arrest” had not been properly communicated to her. Assailing the order, the State contended that Sonam had filed three earlier bail applications without raising this issue, that she had been informed of the reasons for her arrest during transit remand proceedings, and that the reference to a non-existent penal provision in the arrest documents was merely a typographical error causing no prejudice.
Rejecting these submissions, the High Court held that the constitutional requirement of communicating the grounds of arrest in writing is now firmly settled through seriesof decisions of the Supreme Court in Pankaj Bansal v. Union of India & Ors., (2024) 7 SCC 576, Prabir Purkayastha v. State (NCT of Delhi), (2024) 8 SCC 254, Vihaan Kumar v. State of Haryana & Anr., (2025) 5 SCC 799, and Mihir Rajesh Shah v. State of Maharashtra, 2025 INSC 1288, and applies equally to offences under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
Examining the documents, the Court found that the “Intimation of Grounds of Arrest” served upon the accused was merely a printed checklist containing around seventeen generic grounds of arrest, including wholly irrelevant entries such as suspicion of being a deserter from the Armed Forces or involvement in offences committed outside India, without specifying the actual allegations against her.
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“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 are the actual charges against her… 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. Therefore, the provision of Article 22(1) read with Section 47(1) BNSS have indeed been violated.”
The Court further observed that although the repeated reference to Section 403(1) BNS, a non-existent provision, was described by the State as a typographical error, its recurrence across multiple documents itself demonstrated a lack of application of mind by the authorities. The Court, however, refrained from commenting on the course of the investigation, the findings recorded therein, the subsequent filing of the charge sheet, or the eventual framing of charges against the accused, noting that none of these aspects had been challenged before it.
It clarified that the trial, therefore, was “not at all vitiated” and that its examination was confined solely to the legality of the procedure adopted at the initial stage of arrest, when the grounds of arrest are constitutionally required to be made known and duly furnished to the arrestee. The Bench further advised the investigating authorities to revisit the manner in which grounds of arrest are prepared, observing that they “would do well… to have a re-look into this aspect of this matter as far as preparation of proper and specific grounds of arrest is concerned.”
Holding that the trial court was justified in granting bail on account of the constitutional violation, the High Court found no ground to exercise its inherent powers to interfere with the impugned order. The State’s petition was accordingly dismissed, while the Court advised the investigating authorities to revisit the manner in which grounds of arrest are prepared and communicated to ensure compliance with constitutional safeguards
Background of the case
The case stems from the sensational Raja Raghuvanshi honeymoon murder case. Raja, an Indore-based businessman, was allegedly murdered during his honeymoon in Meghalaya in May 2025. According to the prosecution, Sonam conspired with her alleged associate and hired contract killers to eliminate her husband while the couple was visiting Sohra (Cherrapunji). Raja’s body was later recovered from a gorge, and Sonam, who had initially gone missing, was subsequently arrested along with other accused.
