Twisha Sharma, a 33-year-old woman, was found dead at her Bhopal matrimonial home in May 2026. Her husband, a lawyer, and her mother-in-law, a retired judge, stand accused of dowry harassment. Here is what the case is about and where it stands.
THE Twisha Sharma case concerns the death of a 33-year-old woman who was found hanging at her matrimonial home in Bhopal’s Katara Hills area on the night of May 12, 2026, in which her husband, Samarth Singh, a practising lawyer, and her mother-in-law, Giribala Singh, a retired district judge, have been accused of dowry harassment and abetment to suicide.
The case has travelled from a Bhopal sessions court to the Madhya Pradesh High Court and the Supreme Court within a fortnight of her death.
Twisha had been married to Samarth Singh on December 9, 2025. Her death, therefore, came within six months of the marriage. Her family alleged that she had been subjected to cruelty and dowry harassment, and that the conduct of her in-laws had driven her to take her life.
The police first recorded and inquired into the death as one of unnatural death under section 194 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, the procedural provision, formerly section 174 of the CrPC, under which the police inquire into a sudden or suspicious death before an FIR is registered.
Following that inquiry, an FIR was registered on May 15 against Samarth Singh and Giribala Singh under sections 80(2), 85 and 3(5) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, which deal with dowry death, cruelty by a husband or his relatives, and acts done by several persons in furtherance of a common intention, along with sections 3 and 4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961.
The husband was first refused anticipatory bail. He thereafter approached the High Court, which he later withdrew with permission to surrender, and was remanded to police custody.
The mother-in-law, however, was granted anticipatory bail on May 15 by the 10th Additional Sessions Judge, Bhopal, on the very day the FIR was registered, on the reasoning that the FIR and the WhatsApp chats pointed to her son rather than to her.
Also read: MP High Court quashes anticipatory bail of mother-in-law Giribala Singh in Twisha Sharma death case
That the protection had been secured within hours of the FIR being lodged became the focus of considerable disquiet. The family, meanwhile, pressed for a second post-mortem to establish the cause of death, which the High Court allowed, directing an autopsy by a team from AIIMS.
The matter then reached the Supreme Court, which took suo motu cognizance in a case titled In Re: Alleged Institutional Bias and Procedural Discrepancies in the Unnatural Death of Young Woman at Matrimonial Home.
A Bench of CJI Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul Pancholi recorded that it had initiated the proceedings against the backdrop of a narrative that there was institutional bias in the investigation, given that the husband was an advocate and the mother-in-law a former judge.
On May 25, the Court recorded that the investigation was to be transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta having submitted that the Madhya Pradesh government had recommended such a transfer.
The Court also appealed to the media to exercise restraint, observing that, “we are slightly at pain because of some of the actions. We will request our media friends to not go for the statements of the victims family or the other family. Let the things move as per law and procedure.”
The conduct of the accused was raised before the Court. Mehta submitted that the mother-in-law had moved from one channel to another giving statements that maligned the deceased, and that she was not cooperating with the investigation.
Appearing for the family, Senior Advocate Siddharth Luthra alleged a delay of three days in registering the FIR and a failure to preserve evidence, while Senior Advocate Siddharth Dave, for the accused, raised concerns over the publication of a statement recorded under section 164 of the CrPC in the newspapers.
The State and Twisha’s father then challenged the mother-in-law’s anticipatory bail before the High Court, and on May 27 the single-judge Bench of Justice Devnarayan Mishra quashed it.
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Examining the case diary, the court found that while the death was due to antemortem hanging by ligature, six other antemortem injuries were present on the body, four on the left arm, one on the ring finger and one on the head, and that a query report had clarified that these were not caused while removing the body from the ligature or transporting it to hospital.
On the question of whom the allegations were directed against, the court observed that, “there are clear allegations against the respondent and her son. From the WhatsApp chats also, it cannot be said that the allegations are only against Samarth Singh but the trial Court did not consider all these facts.”
The statements of five prosecution witnesses, recorded from the day after the death, were noted to allege that both the husband and the mother-in-law had harassed the deceased and pressured her to abort her pregnancy.
With the protection set aside, the path was cleared for the CBI, which had taken over the probe from the Special Investigation Team of the Bhopal Police on May 25, to seek custodial interrogation. The husband remains in CBI custody, and the investigation continues.
The death within months of marriage, the standing of the accused, and the speed at which protection from arrest had been secured are what have placed the Twisha Sharma case at the centre of a renewed national conversation on dowry deaths.
Case Title: In Re: Alleged Institutional Bias and Procedural Discrepancies in the Unnatural Death of Young Woman at Matrimonial Home, SMW(Crl) 4/2026
Other related cases: State v Giribala Singh, MCRC No. 24475 of 2026; Navnidhi Sharma v State of MP, MCRC No. 24405 of 2026
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