New Delhi, July 23
Bollywood starlet Monica Bedi, incarcerated since her arrest by Portuguese authorities in September 2002 with underworld don Abu Salem and after her extradition to India in 2005, finally gained her freedom with the Supreme Court ordering her release after cancelling her passport.
The release of Bedi, already granted bail by the Supreme Court earlier in a passport forgery case in Hyderabad in which she was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, could not materialise even after her acquittal in another fake passport case by a Bhopal court as she could not surrender her original passport.
The condition of surrendering her passport was imposed by the apex court while allowing her bail petition.
She was arrested with Salem at Lisbon while accompanying him under an assumed name as his declared wife and both of them were awarded two years’ imprisonment there for travelling on forged documents.
Bedi’s counsel K T S Tulsi today told a Bench, headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan, that she did not have any passport now as all her
travel documents were seized at the time of her arrest at Lisbon by Portuguese authorities.
But additional solicitor general Amarinder Sharan, appearing for CBI, said a passport with No B-0195737 issued in her name by the Regional Passport Office (RPO), Mumbai, on June 24 still existed in her name and if she is to be released, then this passport should be cancelled.
