JUDGMENT :

Bharati Dangre, J.

1. A significant and axial issue involved in the two writ petitions before us revolve around the National Spot Exchange Limited (NSEL) and the parties are diversificated on the issue as to whether the said establishment is a Financial Establishment or not, and whether it has accepted the deposits.

Both the Writ Petitions are filed by the petitioner which is a listed Company registered under the Companies Act, engaged in the business of developing and selling technology products of facilitating trading on exchanges such as stock exchange and commodity exchange and it claims to have more than 63,000 shareholders and more than 800 employees. The petitioner claims to be a leader in Financial Technologies market and has developed a software by name “ODIN” and it is claimed that this software has provided a platform for online trading and it is claimed by the petitioner that it has become a market leader due to its effort and determination.

2. The petitioner has posed a challenge to the Constitutional validity of Sections 4 and 5 of the Maharashtra Protection of Interests of Depositors in Financial Establishments Act, 1999 (for short 'MPID Act') being violative of Article 14, 19 and Article 300A of the Constitution and also to the levy of attachment on the petitioner's assets by six notifications issued by the respondent no.1 by invoking the powers conferred on the authority under the said enactment. Writ Petition No.1181 of 2018 assails several notifications issued by the State and it also sought several interim reliefs and the said reliefs came to be granted in favour of the petitioner by passing several interim order from time to time. Writ Petition No. 508 of 2017 assails the validity of the relevant provisions of the Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors Act (for short 'MPID') to the extent which affects the petitioner as a promoter of the alleged Financial Establishment.

3. Since both the Writ Petitions revolve around the same facts, we would refer to the facts as stated in WP No.1181/2018. The petition proceeds to state that one of the many subsidiaries of the petitioner is the National Spot Exchange Limited (hereinafter referred to as 'NSEL') and the petitioner holds 99.99% shares of NSEL. The NSEL had launched contracts for buying and selling of commodities on its trading platform with different settlement periods ranging from T+0 days to T+36 days. In the aforesaid contracts, the word 'T' denotes the Trade date i.e. the day on which the trade took place and '+0' or '+36' is referred to as number of business days after which the delivery of commodity and payment of price therefor, was to be effected by the Buying Trading Member and Selling Trading Member, as the case may be. Under these contracts, according to the petitioner, a quantity of particular commodity would be brought and sold on the exchange of T+2 basis and at the same time, the buying trading member and the selling trading member would resell the commodity on T+25 basis. This, in short, is the transaction which is referred to in the petition and it is stated that NSEL provided an electronic trading platform for spot contracts in various commodities on a compulsory delivery basis. It is stated that NSEL commenced its operation in October 2008 in accordance with the Notification dated 5th June 2007 issued by the Department of Consumer Affairs, Government of India under the FCRA, 1952, by which “All forward contracts of one day duration for the sale and purchase of commodities traded on” NSEL were exempted from the purview of Forward Contract Regulations Act, 1952 (for short 'FCRA'). It is the case of the petitioner that the NSEL operated an Exchange in accordance with the Rules, Regulations and byelaws and in its terms, the brokers became the members of the exchange and traded in commodities on the exchange platform on their