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The Madras High Court, connected Tuesday (March 17, 2026), deferred orders connected writ petitions filed by 2 backstage surveillance work companies, 1 based successful Delhi and different successful Chennai, challenging the tender conditions imposed by the bureau of the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) for installing 1.5 lakh cameras successful 75,000 polling stations and 3,744 cameras successful the counting centres for unrecorded webcasting during the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections 2026.
First Division Bench of Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G. Arul Murugan said, it would endeavour to walk orders by Tuesday itself since the method and fiscal bids had to beryllium submitted by 3 p.m. and the method bids were scheduled to beryllium opened by 3:30 p.m. connected Tuesday. The judges deferred orders aft the submission of a written enactment by Election Commission of India (ECI) counsel Niranjan Rajagopal.
The Bench besides heard elaborate arguments precocious by elder counsel Siddharth Mridul (former Chief Justice of Manipur High Court) and V. Raghavachari for Chennai based I-Net Secure Labs Private Limited and elder counsel Satish Parasaran for Delhi based Innovatiview India Limited which had challenged antithetic tender conditions due to the fact that of which the 2 companies got excluded from the portion of consideration.
Mr. Mridul told the tribunal the tender notification issued connected March 3 states that associated ventures would not beryllium allowed to enactment successful the tender process and adjacent successful lawsuit of a consortium, the premier bidder acquisition unsocial would beryllium taken into information and that the bidder indispensable person an yearly turnover of ₹100 crore and supra successful the past 3 audited fiscal years (2022-23, 2023-34 and 2024-25).
Highlighting the estimated task worth of the tender was astir ₹120 crore, the elder counsel said, arsenic per established nationalist procurement principles and Central Vigilance Commission guidelines, the turnover requirements successful nationalist tenders should mostly not transcend 30 to 40% of the estimated task worth unless it was highly indispensable owed to the unsocial quality of the procurement.
He said, specified onerous tender conditions had been introduced successful Tamil Nadu for the archetypal clip and they were wholly astatine variance with the tender conditions imposed successful Kerala and West Bengal. He said, successful West Bengal wherever 1.8 lakh cameras were required astatine polling stations, the tender request was lone a cumulative turnover of ₹150 crores implicit 3 years since the tender worth was astir ₹150 crore.
Further, contending the 2 onerous tender conditions would exclude a bulk of the intending bidders from the portion of information and licence lone a mates of companies to enactment successful the tender process, the elder counsel said: “Such restrictive eligibility criteria make a beardown apprehension that the tender conditions person been tailored to suit the said 2 companies alone.”
One of the firm’s arguments
On his part, Mr. Parasaran challenged the tender information which required the bidders to show anterior acquisition of executing unrecorded web streaming from not little than 1 lakh polling presumption cameras on with installation of astatine slightest 2,500 closed circuit tv (CCTV) cameras successful the counting centres, isolated from executing 3 akin predetermination surveillance projects.
He said, portion anterior acquisition successful executing unrecorded web streaming from polling stations was reasonable, the further request that bidders indispensable person besides installed 2,500 cameras successful the counting centres was unnecessary and irrational. He said, “the manifestly arbitrary and disproportionate” information operates arsenic an artificial obstruction that excludes the different technically competent bidders.
He besides said, specified tender conditions were absent successful the notifications issued successful different States. However, Mr. Rajagopal claimed the tender conditions were invited by the respective State authorities depending upon the section needs and requirements and hence determination were variations successful them. He added a higher turnover had been insisted during this predetermination due to the fact that the fig of cameras required present were more.
