Supreme Court Gives Sonam Raghuvanshi Time to Decide on Surrender or Bail Hearing

The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked honeymoon murder case accused Sonam Raghuvanshi to choose between temporarily surrendering before the trial court or allowing the apex court to decide the legality of her bail on merits.

Hearing Meghalaya government’s plea against the High Court order upholding Sonam’s bail, a Bench of Justice M.M. Sundresh and Justice P.B. Varale indicated that surrendering until the examination of key prosecution witnesses could be a suitable course of action. The court said it would thereafter reconsider her bail application based on the merits of the case.

The Bench observed that such a course would strike a balance between the interests of the prosecution and the accused. However, it clarified that if Sonam does not opt to surrender, the court would proceed to hear the matter on the validity of the bail order itself.

The apex court also questioned why the issue of the alleged non-communication of the grounds of arrest had not been raised at the initial stage of the proceedings. It further sought clarification on whether the mention of Section 403 instead of Section 103 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) in the arrest documents had materially affected the case.

The Meghalaya government has challenged the bail granted by the Shillong court and later upheld by the High Court. The lower court had held that repeated references to the wrong penal provision in the arrest memo and other documents could not be treated as a mere clerical error.

Appearing for the state government, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta argued that Sonam was fully aware of the grounds of her arrest and that the incorrect section mentioned in the documents was only a typographical mistake, which neither invalidated the arrest nor justified bail.

Counsel for Sonam, on the other hand, submitted that the prosecution’s case is entirely based on circumstantial evidence and argued that extensive media coverage had influenced public perception of the case.

The Supreme Court has directed Sonam Raghuvanshi to inform the court of her decision when the matter is taken up again on July 23.