Shillong court grants bail to Sonam Raghuvanshi, accused of killing husband during honeymoon in Meghalaya

The accused was granted bail on the ground that she was not effectively communicated the reasons of her arrest and the charges.

Guwahati: Nearly 10 months after her arrest in connection with alleged murder of her husband during honeymoon in Sohra, a popular tourist destination in Meghalaya, Sonam Raghuvanshi was on Monday granted bail by a court in Shillong.

A court of additional district judge granted the bail to the 26-year-old Sonam, primarily on the ground that she was not effectively communicated about the ground on which she was arrested in June last year. This was one of the arguments by her lawyer during the hearing of the bail petition.

Sonam along with seven others including her alleged lover Raj Kushwaha were arrested in June from different places in Madhya Pradesh and UP after police recovered the body of her husband Raja Raghuvanshi from a deep gorge near Sohra. Sonam and Raj were on a honeymoon trip to Assam and then to Meghalaya in May last year. The couple went missing after they went out to Sohra on a rented two-wheeler. Raja's decomposed body was recovered from the gorge on June 2. All are now lodged in a jail in Shillong.

In the 790-page chargesheet in September, Meghalaya police claimed that Raja was killed by Sonam and her associates with a sharp weapon and was pushed down into the gorge. A supplementary charge sheet was filed in February this year.

Sonam's lawyer stated in the court that since one more accused had been summoned in the supplementary chargesheets and several new documents and additional sections were added, trial in the case remained halted for more than two months since February 3. "In that view of the matter, the accused can not be put under pre-conviction detention for an infinite period of time without any trial," her lawyer argued.

The court in its order on Monday (April 27), which was made public on Tuesday, stated that there was no indication that the charges against Sonam had been communicated to her. "This shows that sufficient knowledge of facts constituting grounds of arrest, has not been effectively communicated to the petitioner herein in clear terms. Therefore, it can be said that prejudice has been caused to her as far as her defense is concerned. Moreover, there is nothing on record to show that the petitioner was represented by a counsel at the time when she was first produced before the court at Ghazipur, whereby this plea could have been raised by her."

"Under the peculiar facts and circumstances of this case, this Court is convinced that the petitioner has been able to make out a case of not having effectively communicated the grounds of arrest upon her arrest."

The court, however, granted the bail on the conditions that Sonam shall not abscond or tamper with the evidence or witnesses, shall attend court on every date fixed, shall not leave the jurisdiction of this court, except with due permission; and deposit a personal bond of Rs 50,000 with two sureties of like amount.