HC calls EC poll surveillance tender ‘arbitrary’ & ‘mala fide’
Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court has held the Election Commission of India’s handling of a tender for CCTV-based live web-streaming during the West Bengal Assembly elections to be “arbitrary and mala fide”, citing unequal treatment of bidders.
However, the court declined to set aside the work orders, citing public interest, as the project is linked to the Assembly elections scheduled for April 23 and April 29.
The ruling was delivered by Justice Krishna Rao in a March 25 judgement. The case was filed by a private firm whose technical bid was rejected on February 28 after it participated in a tender floated on February 9 for deploying surveillance systems across polling stations for the 2026 Assembly polls.
The petitioner contended that while it was declared “technically not qualified”, other bidders were allowed despite not meeting the same eligibility criteria. At the centre of the dispute were clauses on prior experience. The tender required bidders to show large-scale deployment of cameras and execution of live web-streaming work for elections across States.
The petitioner argued that its experience — including deployment of over 1.42 lakh cameras — met the requirements, and even after excluding work in certain Union Territories, remained above the 1.3 lakh threshold.
A key issue was the treatment of experience in Union Territories. The authorities rejected the petitioner’s experience in Puducherry and Daman but accepted another bidder’s experience in Delhi.
The court rejected this distinction, observing that Delhi remains a Union Territory despite its special status and cannot be treated differently.
Holding that different standards were applied to similarly placed bidders, the court found the action “arbitrary and mala fide”, and said the petitioner was not treated equally.
The court also questioned the claim that work orders had been issued on March 11, noting records were not uploaded on the e-procurement portal till March 18, making that claim “not acceptable”.
The petition was disposed of with liberty to the petitioner to seek damages before an appropriate forum.
