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8. We heard Mr. A.K. Ganguli, learned senior counsel for the appellants, Mr. Sidharth Luthra, learned Additional Solicitor General for respondent No.1 & Mr. Parag P. Tripathi, learned senior counsel for respondent No.2. Mr. Ganguli while assailing the order of the Division Bench after taking us through the material documents, in particular, the specimen application form submitted by the investors along with its annexures, copies of certain sale deeds between the vendor and the investors, submitted that once the joint venture operations carried on by the PGF Limited, were stopped by them on and from 01.02.2000, its other activity of sale of agricultural land nor the sale and development of agricultural land can be brought within the category of collective investment schemes. The learned senior counsel by referring to the definition of ‘security’ under the Securities Contracts (Regulation) Act, 1956, which definition was adopted for the purpose of application of SEBI Act as mentioned in Section 2(1)(i), contended that the application form or the development agreement cannot be construed as an ‘instrument’ in order to state that the sale and development activity of the PGF Limited can be brought within the category of collective investment schemes.

24. Having heard Mr. A.K. Ganguli, learned senior counsel for the appellants, Mr. Sidharth Luthra, learned Additional Solicitor General for respondent No.1 & Mr. Parag P. Tripathi, learned senior counsel for respondent No.2, having perused the numerous paper books and compilations placed before us and having bestowed our serious consideration to the various submissions before us, at the very outset, we state that the present litigation by way of writ petition before the High Court in challenging the vires of Section 11AA of the SEBI Act and after having lost before the Division Bench of the High Court in its elaborate judgment, in its frantic attempt to pursue the litigation still further by filing this civil appeal before the Supreme Court, which in turn necessitated devotion of the precious time of this Court, force us to state that the whole attempt of the PGF Limited was thoroughly vexatious and calls for severe indictment. We also wish to note here and now that apart from rejecting the contentions of the PGF Limited for various reasons to be adduced in this judgment and having noted the evil intention of the PGF Limited in having perpetrated this litigation, apart from mulcting the PGF Limited with exemplary costs, it also calls for appropriate enquiry and investigation to be made not only by the second respondent but also by the prime criminal investigating agencies, namely, the Central Bureau of Investigation and also by the Department of Income Tax, in order to find out the extent of fraud indulged in by the PGF Limited under the garb of development of agricultural lands that too at the cost of gullible investors, who were offered fragmented pieces of so called agricultural lands in multiple units of 150 sq. yds. per unit. At this juncture, it will be appropriate to note that in spite of our repeated asking of the learned senior counsel for the appellants, as to what materials were placed before the High Court or before this Court, as to the extent of developments made to the various so called agricultural lands procured and stated to have been transferred in favour of thousands of investors, to our utter dismay, the learned senior counsel appearing for the appellants fairly submitted that no material was either placed before the Division Bench of the High Court or before this Court till the conclusion of the hearing. The learned senior counsel, however, made a feeble contention that there was no occasion for the appellants to produce those materials though he was not able to satisfactorily explain to us as to why no such material could be placed before us when we repeatedly called upon the appellants to place such materials.