Just one ‘typo’ and you got bail? Meghalaya government’s big arguments in Supreme Court to send Sonam Raghuvanshi back to jail

A new and very interesting twist has come in the murder case of Indore’s famous transport businessman Raja Raghuvanshi. The Meghalaya government has now approached the country’s highest court (Supreme Court) to cancel the bail of the main accused and the deceased’s wife, Sonam Raghuvanshi, and send her back behind bars. This matter witnessed a heated debate in the Supreme Court on Thursday, where the country’s Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta, appearing for the government, gave an argument that has created a stir in the legal circles. The law was followed, just one typing mistake proved costly: Tushar Mehta During the hearing in the Supreme Court, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Meghalaya government, strongly opposed the bail. He told the court that accused Sonam Raghuvanshi got bail on the technical ground that at the time of her arrest, no written grounds were given for her detention. But the reality is not like this. The Solicitor General claimed that the police had completely followed the entire legal process of arrest. Aadhaar was also handed over to the accused in writing, but during the paperwork, ‘a small typing mistake’ (typo) was made. 403 was written in place of Section 103, Supreme Court asked for proof. When the issue of not getting written basis for arrest was raised before the division bench of Justice Manoj Mishra and Justice Shri Chandrashekhar, SG Tushar Mehta clarified that the basis was given in writing only. The only objection was that there was a mistake in writing the legal clause in the document. The police had to write Section 103 (1) there, but due to human error, Section 403 (1) was registered. After hearing this argument, the Supreme Court bench understood the seriousness of the case and asked the Solicitor General to present before the court a clear photocopy of the original documents handed over to Sonam Raghuvanshi at the time of her arrest, so that it could be clear whether the accused was given the general background information of the case or not. Will the bigger bench now decide the future of Sonam Raghuvanshi? The legal entanglement in this matter has become so complicated that the Supreme Court is now looking at it as an example. The bench commented that the issue needs to be considered in detail. The court indicated that there appeared to be some contradictions in the previous decisions of different benches (such as the Bansal and Mihir Rajesh cases). In such a situation, the Supreme Court will also review whether there is a need to send the case to a larger bench to resolve this legal point or not. At present, after hearing all the parties, the court has fixed the next hearing of this high-profile case for Tuesday, June 14.