Shillong: Was Sonam Raghuvanshi, who is accused of murdering her husband, Raja Raghuvanshi, during their honeymoon in Meghalaya last year, granted bail, due to a clerical error? Reports claiming the same have surfaced. According to a NDTV report, which claims to have been drafted on the basis of court documents accessed by the channel, it was a case of clerical error.
In the honeymoon murder case, an FIR was registered under Section 103 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, pertaining to murder. Now, as per law, it is a fundamental right of every arrested person, who has been detained in custody, to be informed of the grounds of their arrest. But in this case, under the “Intimation of Grounds of Arrest”, Section 403 (1) of the BNS was mentioned, the court noted, as per the report.
Interestingly, the BNS, which replaced the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in 2024, does not have a section 403 (1). Under the IPC, section 403 dealt with the offense of dishonest misappropriation of property.
“A bare perusal of the Intimation of Grounds of arrest would indicate that the Petitioner was not informed about the offence under section (u/s) 103(1) BNS. Though it has been argued that this is a clerical error, however such error cannot occur in all documents,” the court order, as cited in the report, reads.
The East Khasi Hills district court noted that in all documents pertaining to Sonam Raghuvanshi case the “sections referred to is u/s 403(1)/238(a)/309(6)/3(6) BNS. In none of the documents has the petitioner been intimated that she is arrested for the offence u/s 103(1) BNS.”
Such documents include the checklist for justification of arrest, memo of arrest, inspection memo, intimation of rights of the arrested person and extract of case diary.
Her husband, Raja Raghuvanshi, an Indore-based businessman, was hacked to death on 23rd May, 2025, during his honeymoon in Meghalaya. His body was found 10 days later in a gorge near Wei Sawdong Falls, in the East Khasi Hills.
Sonam was arrested as the prime suspect, having allegedly conspired with three others to kill Raghuvanshi.
While granting bail, the court directed Sonam not to leave Shillong and report to the local police station daily to mark her attendance.
Sonam, who had been on the run after Raghuvanshi’s murder, was arrested by police from UP’s Ghazipur on June 9. She had been lodged in a jail in Shillong.
