Passport case: SC to hear Monica's petition

New Delhi, July 20: The Supreme Court will hear on July 23 a petition filed by Monica Bedi, a close associate of underworld don Abu Salem, praying to waive the condition of surrendering her original passport as directed by the Hyderabad trial court.

Monica Bedi has already been acquitted by a Bhopal court in a case of forged passport and she has been granted bail by the Supreme Court in another case.

She was not released from jail as she was not able to produce her original passport.

Senior counsel K T S Tulsi mentioned the petition before a bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justices Tarun Chatterjee and R V Raveendran contending that the condition of surrendering original passport should be waived as her passport was seized by the authorities in Lisbon, Portugal, where she had been arrested in 2003 and later on extradited to India in 2005.

She was sentenced to five-year imprisonment by the Hyderabad trial court but the sentence was commuted to three years by the Andhra Pradesh High court.

UNI