2026 Bengal Assembly Polls: Calcutta High Court Declines To Interfere With Surveillance & Live Web-Streaming Tender Criteria
The Calcutta High Court has upheld the eligibility criteria prescribed in a tender issued by the Chief Electoral Officer, West Bengal, for providing a comprehensive surveillance and live web-streaming system for the 2026 Legislative Assembly elections, holding that courts cannot interfere with technical conditions of a tender unless they are demonstrably arbitrary, discriminatory, or mala fide.
Dismissing a writ petition filed by Innovatiview India Limited, Justice Krishna Rao observed that the formulation of experience requirements falls squarely within the policy domain of the tendering authority and judicial review cannot be invoked merely because a bidder finds the criteria restrictive or seeks relaxation.
The petitioner had challenged Clauses 4(a) and 4(b) of the Request for Proposal dated February 9, 2026, which mandated that bidders must have executed live election web-streaming assignments cumulatively involving not less than 1,30,000 cameras at polling stations and must also have installed at least 3,000 CCTV cameras at counting centres across India, apart from completing three full-State election projects. Contending that it possessed substantial polling-station webcasting experience but lacked comparable counting-centre deployments, the petitioner argued that the additional requirement created an artificial entry barrier and disproportionately restricted competition. It requested that the authorities either dilute the clause or permit participation based on limited counting-centre experience of around 400 cameras or at least one such project.
The petitioner further relied on a similar tender issued in Kerala where, after pre-bid discussions, certain experience conditions were modified, and also highlighted its successful execution of webcasting work for over 81,000 polling stations during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh. It alleged that the impugned clauses were tailor-made to favour select bidders and cited the Supreme Court's decision in Vinishma Technologies Pvt. Ltd. v. State of Chhattisgarh to argue that irrational eligibility restrictions offend the principles of fair competition.
Opposing the plea, the State authorities submitted that the petitioner admittedly lacked the prescribed counting-centre experience and that the requirement was necessitated by the scale of the West Bengal elections. They pointed out that the State has over 80,000 polling stations, 108 counting centres and 421 counting halls, each requiring multiple cameras for real-time monitoring, besides additional installations at checkposts and vehicles. It was argued that counting-centre surveillance is a specialised and critical component of the electoral process and cannot be equated with polling-station webcasting. Relying on the Supreme Court's ruling in Airports Authority of India v. Centre for Aviation Policy, Safety and Research, the respondents contended that tender conditions lie within the executive's commercial wisdom and are immune from interference absent clear arbitrariness.
Accepting the State's submissions, the Court noted that the petitioner's own pre-bid queries revealed its lack of counting-centre experience and that it had not even participated in the tender process. The Court found that the comparison with Kerala was misplaced, as even the modified Kerala criteria retained substantial counting-centre camera requirements far higher than what the petitioner proposed. It also observed that mere allegations of “tailor-made” conditions, without naming or demonstrating favouritism towards any specific bidder, were insufficient to establish mala fides.
Holding that the experience requirement had a rational nexus with the scale and complexity of election monitoring in the State, the Court concluded that it could not substitute its view for that of the tendering authority or rewrite the eligibility criteria. Finding no illegality or arbitrariness, the Court dismissed the writ petition and subsequently refused the petitioner's prayer for stay.
Case Title: Innovatiview India Ltd. v. Chief Electoral Officer, West Bengal & Anr.
Case No.: W.P.O. 89 of 2026