New Delhi, April 20
Bollywood starlet Monica Bedi, facing trial in second passport forgery case in a Madhya Pradesh court along with her mentor underworld don Abu Salem, today moved a fresh bail petition in the supreme court.

Bedi’s counsel K.T.S. Tulsi submitted that she was facing health problems and had lost 10 kg of weight. She was regretting her decision to associate herself with a “wrong man and has become a puritan.”

Pleading that her bail petition be considered, Tulsi said, “She is an innocent girl and even the CBI has admitted that her signatures on the passport papers were forged.”

If her signatures were made by someone else, how could she be punished for the offence, Tulsi said, adding that at the most she could be convicted for travelling on a forged passport, for which the maximum sentence was only two years, which she had already undergone.

Monica was extradited along with Salem from Portugal in October, 2005, and has since been lodged in jail.

In view of the submission made by Bedi’s counsel, a bench, headed by Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, sought a status report by May 17 from the CBI on the progress of the trial.

The CBI counsel in an oral submission stated that the examination of witnesses might be over in the next eight weeks.

But he said there were charges of forgery, cheating and criminal conspiracy against her for which the punishment was higher.