Court rejects Monica plea

THE COURT of additional district & sessions judge Anurag Shrivastava on Wednesday rejected the revision petition of former Bollywood actress and companion of underworld don Abul Salem, Monica Bedi, for modification of charges framed against her by the lower court.

THE COURT of additional district & sessions judge Anurag  Shrivastava on Wednesday rejected the revision petition of former Bollywood actress and companion of underworld don Abul Salem, Monica Bedi, for modification of charges framed against her by the lower court.

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Monica Bedi’s local counsel, in his revision petition, had contended that charges against Monica Bedi under sections 468, 420 and 471 of the IPC for cheating should be dropped because the charge under Section 419 of the IPC for impersonation has already been dropped by the sessions court against her.

But the court held that there was prima facie evidence to believe that Monica presented herself as Fauziya Usmani during verification of her application for passport and it was she, who applied for passport in the name of Fauziya Usmani, pasting her photograph in the application because none else could have used the passport but Monica.

In such a situation, charges framed against her by the trial court seemed lawful and judicious, the court said. On the other hand, the trial court of judicial magistrate Dinesh Kumar Dangi reserved its verdict on an application moved by Monica’s counsel seeking that her trial in the fake passport case be separated from that of the other accused.

Dangi reserved his verdict till Thursday, after Monica’s counsel contended that the prosecution had produced separate documents and witnesses against Monica, Salem, his wife Sameera Zamani, Mohammed Siraj and Abdul Kabeer alias Baba, who were accused of obtaining passports on the basis of fake documents.

Since some charges levelled against her were different from those levelled against the co-accused, her case should be tried separately, her counsel P C Bedi contended.

Statements of a witness, Naib Tehsildar Maqsood Ahmed, who had attested ration cards used for procuring the passports, could not be recorded by the court on Wednesday due to the absence of documents.