Judgment

Dr. A.S. Anand, CJI. - On 15-7-1997 when this batch of appeals/special leave petitions was placed before a two-Judge Bench, it was noticed that there was divergence of opinion bet­ween different Benches of this Court with regard to the ambit and scope of Section 50 of Narcotic Drugs and - Psychotropic Sub­stances Act, 1985 (hereinafter ‘NDPS Act’) and in parti­cular with regard to the admissibility of the evidence collected by an investigating officer during search and seizure conducted in vio­lation of the provisions of Section 50 of NDPS Act. In the cases of State of Punjab v. Balbir Singh1 , Ali Mustaffa Abdul Rahman Moosa v. State of Kerala2 , Saiyad Mohd. Saiyad Umar Saiyad & Ors. v. State of Gujarat3  and a number of other cases, it was laid down that failure to observe the safeguards, while conducting search and seizure, as provided by Section 50 would render the conviction and sentence of an accused illegal. In Ali Mustaffa’s case (supra), the judgment in Pooran Mal v. The Director of Inspection (Investigation), New Delhi & Ors.4 , was also consid­ered and it was opined that the judgment in Pooran Mal’s case could not be interpreted to have laid down that a contr