Calcutta High Court Upholds CEO’s Surveillance Tender for 2026 Assembly Elections

PTI, Mar 19, 2026, Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court has upheld a tender issued by the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), West Bengal, for deploying a comprehensive surveillance and live webcasting system during the 2026 Assembly elections, ruling that the eligibility conditions cannot be termed arbitrary or exclusionary.

Dismissing an appeal by a private bidder, a Division Bench of Justices Shampa Sarkar and Ajay Kumar Gupta held that the criteria relating to prior experience in large-scale election webcasting, CCTV deployment at counting centres, and GPS-based vehicle tracking were directly linked to the scope of the work.

The tender involves live web streaming of polling across more than 80,000 polling stations, surveillance of counting through CCTV cameras in over 100 counting halls, and monitoring of vehicles such as flying squads and quick response teams.

The petitioner had challenged the tender conditions as “irrational” and “anti-competitive”, arguing that combining multiple experience requirements — including webcasting, CCTV installation, and GPS tracking — unfairly restricted participation. It also questioned the requirement of executing full-state election projects in at least three states.

The court, however, found that the project covered multiple components forming a single integrated system. It held that experience in installing and operating CCTV cameras at counting centres and tracking vehicles was essential for ensuring transparency and security during elections.

The bench noted that over 80,000 polling booths, around 108 counting halls, and thousands of vehicles and checkposts were to be brought under real-time monitoring. Given this magnitude, prescribing stringent experience criteria could not be considered unreasonable.

The judges also rejected the argument that the conditions were designed to favour select bidders, noting that no material was placed on record to substantiate such allegations. The bench dismissed the appeal and declined to stay the process.