New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday declined to grant bail to extradited gangster Abu Salem's companion Monica Bedi, but ordered that the trial in the forged passport case registered against her by the CBI be completed within two months.
Directing to expedite the trial by conducting day-to-day hearing of the case, a bench of Justice K G Balakrishnan, Justice G P Mathur and Justice D K Jain kept her bail petition pending for October 19, saying that the former Bollywood actress could approach the court with her plea if the trial could not be concluded in stipulated time-frame.
CBI has registered a case against Bedi for procuring passport on forged documents from Hyderabad.
Another case of fake passport was lodged by the Madhya Pradesh Police in Bhopal.
Senior advocate K T S Tulsi, appearing for Bedi contended that she had already served two years' imprisonment for the offence of travelling on fake passport in Lisbon in Portugal and as such she could not be tried again.
"If she will be tried twice and punished twice for the same offence, it would amount to double jeopardy," he said while challenging the orders of the high courts of Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.
Additional Solicitor General Amrender Sharan, appearing for CBI, opposed the bail plea, saying that if she was released on bail there was all likelihood of her fleeing the country as she did not have any permanent resident in India.
However, Tulsi disputed the CBI's argument, claiming that though her parents are abroad, the uncle is living in Punjab and the family has ancestral property in a village in Hoshiyarpur District.
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