Raja Raghuvanshi murder: Owner of Indore flat where Sonam stayed after murder held; to be taken to Shillong
Tomar, the owner of an Indore apartment where the victim's wife, Sonam, hid, is accused of involvement in destroying crucial evidence.
INDORE: Madhya Pradesh police on Monday detained another accused in the murder of Indore-based businessman Raja Raghuvanshi in Gwalior, on the request of a Shillong police SIT that was camping in Indore investigating the murder that rocked the nation.
Lokendra Tomar, owner of the apartment in Indore, where Raja's wife and main accused Sonam stayed in hiding, was detained from Gwalior's Gandhinagar area. Tomar reportedly rented the building to Shilom James, a contractor who was also arrested in connection with the destruction of crucial evidence.
A team from Gwalior crime branch arrived at MK Plaza, Gandhinagar, caught Lokendra Tomar, and took him with them. Vivek Siyem, East Khasi Hills SP (Meghalaya), said, "A splinter team of Shillong police on Monday left from Indore to Gwalior to formally arrest the accused person, who will then be produced before acourt in Gwalior for transit remand."
He is the landlord of the flat at Dewas Naka, where Sonam had taken shelter while hiding in Indore, the SP said adding he had left Madhya Pradesh on June 16 for Uttarakhand. From Uttarakhand, Tomar had proceeded to Gwalior on June 22.
'The accused is wanted in connection with the destruction and concealment of material/ evidence which are vital to the case,' he said. Shillong SIT had arrested three accused in connection to tampering with evidence and other charges.
'All the three will most likely be brought on Wednesday to Shillong,' Siyem said. Shillong police, which already arrested James and the building guard Balveer Ahirwar, produced them before a court on Sunday, which sent them on a 7-day transit remand. During interrogation, James reportedly revealed that he leased the building from Tomar for Rs 3 lakh per month and housed various tenants there, including Sonam.
After Sonam's arrest, Tomar allegedly pressured James to immediately remove and burn the bag from the flat.
This bag is believed to have contained crucial evidence, including Raja and Sonam's mobile phones.
On Sunday, a special investigation team (SIT) from Shillong police, accompanied by officials from Indore crime branch and an FSL team, took James to Hare Krishna Vihar Colony, where he reportedly burned the bag in a vacant plot.
Police intend to send the seized charred remains of the bag for forensic analysis. This examination aims to identify what else was burned along with the bag and determine how long ago the destruction occurred. There is suspicion that SIM cards, electronic devices, and other items were also incinerated.
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Who leaked it? Why? These questions deserve reflection. The ad-hoc nature of the entire process to deal with a scandal or a complaint against a judge is among the most troubling aspects of the current system. For instance, the CCTV footage. The Committee notes that Varma could have preserved the footage from the camera pointed at the store room door to support his claim that the area was accessible to others and that a conspiracy was afoot. But that footage was sealed only on March 25, 10 days after the fire, and only when the Committee visited the premises for a spot inspection. Now, flip the question: If the CJI could direct the seizure of mobile phones belonging to Varma's staff—as the report notes—why didn't he also order the immediate sealing of the CCTV footage from the same area? If preserving digital evidence was within his power in one case, why not in the other? In cases such as these, the failure to have a codified, automatic mechanism to preserve evidence undermines the process to justice. The Delhi Police failing to file a panchnama and seize the cash, given the 'sensitivity' of the case, added to this mess. What's the way forward? This episode shows that internal oversight must be reformed—not in response to outrage, but to restore trust. Disciplinary inquiries must trigger deeper institutional change. We need an independent oversight body, a codified procedure, a robust ethics code, and a time-bound, transparent process. Recent steps—such as the CJI's release of Delhi High Court's preliminary report—are good but isolated and one person-driven. Unless institutionalised, they remain one-offs. The use of digital evidence and remote testimonies is a start, but must be embedded into rules. The government seems eager to push ahead with Varma's impeachment, perhaps to create an example. Some reports even suggest that it may try to bypass the mandated step of setting up an Inquiry Committee after the impeachment motion is admitted. That would be blatantly unconstitutional. The government, i.e. the Executive, appears to be under the mistaken impression that it can dictate the process. The removal of a judge falls squarely within the domain of Parliament. The Judges Inquiry Act makes no allowance for skipping the Inquiry Committee stage. At the same time, the judiciary's stubborn resistance to institutional reform only feeds fodder to its most hostile critics. Take, for example, Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar, who has made it a habit of attacking the judiciary—particularly the Supreme Court—on one issue or another, often sounding like a broken record. His repeated, delusional claims about India being a country where 'Parliament is supreme'—when in fact India is a country where the Constitution is supreme and the judiciary interprets the Constitution—betrays wilful distortion. His political commentary—despite holding a Constitutional office that demands neutrality—only chips away at its dignity and exposes the hypocrisy in his tirades against the Supreme Court. In any case, the Justice Varma affair is not just about one man. It is about institutional decay. About what happens when systems built on trust lose their moral compass. Will sunlight disinfect? Or will we keep fighting fire with fog? The store room at 30 Tughlaq Crescent is now empty. But the smoke it emitted still engulfs the Indian judiciary. And perhaps it should—until the system it exposed is cleansed, not just with light, but with a codified, transparent rule. Saurav Das is an investigative journalist writing on law, judiciary, crime, and policy.
