New Delhi: Sonam Raghuvanshi, a key accused in the murder of her husband, Indore-based businessman Raja Raghuvanshi, during their honeymoon in Meghalaya, can either surrender for witness examination, or wait for the Supreme Court to decide on the application of the Meghalaya government against her bail.
These options were given to Sonam’s counsel by the Supreme Court bench of Justice M M Sundresh and Justice P B Varale on Tuesday.
She was granted bail by a trial court in the state and then upheld by the Meghalaya High Court.
“You (Sonam’s counsel) have two options. Either we will pass an order on merits or we will ask you to surrender, let the public witnesses question you – meanwhile we will decide the matter on merits (on bail),” the Court verbally observed, as reported by ANI.
The lawyer sought time to obtain instructions and informed the Court that he would respond by Thursday.
The Court also questioned Sonam’s conduct after the incident and sought an explanation on the allegation that she did not raise the ground that the “grounds of arrest” were not provided to her earlier.
The Solicitor General of India (SGI) Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Meghalaya government, opposed Sonam’s bail and argued that she had voluntarily surrendered before the police and could not subsequently challenge her arrest on the grounds that the grounds of arrest were not furnished. He submitted that any omission in the arrest memo was merely a clerical error.
“If the arrested accused is caught red-handed, no reason to provide grounds of arrest. If a person surrenders, then the arrested person cannot use the ground that the grounds of arrest are not provided. If the accused herself comes to the police, no reason for the police to arrest”, Mehta submitted.
When the matter came up for hearing before the Supreme Court on July 9, it said that it might refer to a larger bench the legal question whether the mere mention of a wrong statutory section in an arrest memo, specifically a typographical error, was sufficient to invalidate an arrest and grant bail to the accused in the case.
It would closely examine whether the high court was justified in granting bail to Sonam on the grounds that the arrest memo contained a typographical error, the top court had indicated, as reported by Mint.
On June 29, the Meghalaya High Court had upheld Sonam’s bail on the grounds that the police failed to supply proper written grounds of arrest, noting a “total non-application of a judicious mind” because the memo cited Section 403 (which does not exist in the context) instead of Section 103(1) (punishment for murder) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).
The SGI had argued throughout that the error was purely clerical.