Cuttack: Orissa High Court has expressed concern that criminals and politics, "which should have been poles apart from each other, are now on the two sides of the same coin".

The court said this while rejecting the bail plea of the ex-sarpanch of Mardakote, Simachala Samal, who is an accused in a murder case.

Expressing concern over the criminalisation of politics, the court said that while politics had become "criminals' paradise", criminals had "built up their nest in politics by virtue of money and muscle power".

The single-judge bench of Justice S.K. Sahoo said "the trend of criminalisation of politics is growing at a fast pace".

The wife of Pitambar Swain, who was murdered, was contesting the election for the sarpanch's post against the wife of the petitioner. The murder took place on February 20, the day before the election. Justice Sahoo observed: "Here is a case of a politician against whom accusation has been levelled for playing dirty game of eliminating his political opponent for the sake of power. They can go to any extent and commit any crime leaving political ideology far behind."

"The trend of criminalisation of politics is growing at a fast pace. When the political atmosphere is infected by virulent criminals' bacteria, no antibiotics can decontaminate it. It requires complete sanitisation, identification of such unwanted elements, their dislodgement and complete seal of their entry path," Justice Sahoo further observed in his November 10 order.

"Such politicians should be changed like diapers which would be a healthy state of affairs for all concerned," he added.

The court felt the materials available on record indicated that not only was there prima facie accusation against the petitioner to have committed the ghastly crime, along with the co-accused persons, but there also appeared to be a motive behind such crime.

While rejecting the bail plea, Justice Sahoo held: "In view of the availability of prima facie materials against the petitioner regarding his involvement in the commission of ghastly crime, the nature and gravity of accusation, the nature of supporting evidence, the severity of punishment in case of conviction, reasonable apprehension of tampering with the evidence and taking into account the fact that further investigation of the case is under progress, it would not be proper at this stage to release the petitioner on bail."