Prayagraj, Jan 13 (PTI) The plea of BSP MP Atul Rai, facing several criminal cases including a rape case, for quashing a fresh FIR under the Gangster Act, has been dismissed by the Allahabad High Court. A bench of justices Sunita Agarwal and Sadhna Rani refused to quash last Friday the FIR, lodged against Rai on October 23 last year at Lanka police station of Varanasi, saying there is no reason to quash the new FIR against the MP, facing at least half a dozen criminal cases. In his plea, the Bahujan Samaj Party MP had argued that the lodging of a fresh FIR against him violated the interim protection given to him by the high court against his arrest in a 2018 criminal case. In his petition, Rai had also alleged that he had filed a contempt plea against an investigation officer in one of his cases and that is why he is bent upon keeping him behind bars. He said the new FIR reeks of the IO’s vendetta against him as it was registered when he was inside the jail and could not have been involved in any criminal activity. The court, however, dismissed his plea and said, “As regards the petitioner’s contention that he, being in jail and his bail application having been refused, he could not have been booked under the Gangster Act, we do not find any substance in the said submission." “Suffice it to say that the first information report cannot be quashed on this ground," the bench ruled. "We may note that the FIR itself narrates that the Gang Chart dated October 22, 2021, was approved by the competent authority which contains two recent criminal cases against the petitioner. Apart from this, as brought before us, trials in four other criminal cases are going on against the petitioner,” the bench said. “For all the aforesaid noted reasons, we do not find any case for quashing of the FIR. The writ petition is dismissed accordingly," it added. PTI CORR RAJ RAX RAX