25 Court may also accept the same. It was held that, in order to enable the Court to safely rely upon the evidence of the Investigating Officer, it is necessary that the exact words attributed to the accused, as the statement made by him, be brought on record and, for this purpose, the Investigating Officer is obliged to depose in his evidence the exact statement and not merely say that the discovery panchnama of the weapon of the offence was drawn up as the accused was willing to take it out from a particular place. 30. In Khet Singh vs. Union of India 14, this Court held that even if there is a procedural illegality in conducting the search and seizure, the evidence collected thereby would not become inadmissible and the Court would consider all the circumstances to find out whether any serious prejudice has been caused to the accused. However, this Court pointed out that if the search and seizure were in complete defiance of the law and procedure and there was any possibility of the evidence collected having been tampered with or interpolated during the course of such search and seizure, then that evidence could not be admitted. Though these observations were made in the context of a search and seizure under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, they would have relevance generally. 31. Tested against this backdrop, the manner and method in which the panchnamas and memos were prepared in the case on hand leave the 14 (2002) 4 SCC 380

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