4 min readBhopalUpdated: May 21, 2026 06:03 PM IST
The legal battle following the death of actor and model Twisha Sharma is set to move to the Madhya Pradesh High Court, with her husband Samarth Singh challenging a lower court’s rejection of his anticipatory bail plea, and Twisha’s family preparing to seek cancellation of the anticipatory bail granted to his mother Giribala Singh.
Samarth, against whom police have announced a reward after describing him as absconding, has approached the High Court, arguing that the sessions court wrongly denied him anticipatory bail despite granting relief to his mother in the same case.
In his petition, Samarth argued that the allegations of dowry demand were inherently doubtful because he and his mother had allegedly transferred more than Rs 7 lakh to Twisha’s account. “The WhatsApp chats presented by the complainant are edited and incomplete. The same being tampered cannot be relied upon,” the plea states, adding that “more than Rs 7 lakh has been transferred online to the account of Mrs Twisha by the applicant and his mother in a complaint of dowry harassment for a demand of Rs 2 lakh.”
The petition argued against the trial court’s reasoning for rejecting bail, calling the order “completely arbitrary and without any logical reason”.
Samarth further argued that the investigation so far had not produced any material directly linking him to Twisha’s death. “No material till today has been collected to display any involvement of the applicants in the sad demise of Late Mrs Twisha. The entire prosecution story being constructed and built is based on imagination and presumptions,” the petition claimed.
The plea also claimed that Twisha suffered from “drug addiction and related complications of withdrawal symptoms”, asserting that psychiatric and psychological prescriptions had been filed before the court. It additionally contended that “no custodial interrogation is required in the instant case”.
The sessions court, however, had drawn a distinction between the allegations against Giribala Singh, a retired judge, and those against her son while deciding the earlier anticipatory bail pleas.
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While granting anticipatory bail to Giribala Singh, the court had observed that the allegations against her appeared “formal in nature” and that prima facie material suggested the deceased’s “principal grievance” was against her husband. The court also noted that custodial interrogation of the retired judge did not appear necessary at that stage.
In contrast, while rejecting Samarth Singh’s anticipatory bail plea on May 18, the court cited the fact that Twisha had died “within six months of marriage under abnormal circumstances”. The court also relied on statements given by Twisha’s family members, along with WhatsApp chats placed on record, observing that these materials prima facie pointed against Samarth.
The court further noted that the investigation remained incomplete and that custodial interrogation could not be ruled out at that stage.
Twisha’s family is now expected to challenge the anticipatory bail granted to Giribala Singh before the High Court, arguing that the sessions court failed to properly appreciate the allegations of influence over the investigation and postmortem process.
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The case has snowballed into one of the most closely watched criminal investigations in Madhya Pradesh, with allegations of dowry harassment, disputed forensic findings, demands for a second postmortem, and calls for a CBI probe. Earlier this week, Chief Minister Mohan Yadav said the state government would write to the CBI seeking an investigation into the matter, while Bhopal Police Commissioner Sanjay Kumar maintained that the probe so far “points towards suicide and not murder”.
