Chennai: Madras high court on Monday directed the Election Commission of India (ECI) to file its response by Tuesday on a plea challenging the tender issued for providing webcasting services at polling booths.Admitting the plea moved by I-Net Secure Labs Private Limited, an Arumbakkam-based company, the first bench of Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G Arul Murugan passed the interim order.The company primarily challenged certain eligibility conditions in a tender issued for webcasting services during the upcoming TN election. According to the petitioner, the project involves deployment of webcasting infrastructure in many polling stations across the state, along with monitoring systems for counting centres.The petitioner alleged that eligibility requirements in the tender were restrictive and prevented wider participation of bidders. The plea questioned the turnover requirement prescribed in the tender, stating that it did not correspond with the estimated value of the project and differed from the criteria followed in previous poll-related tenders.The petitioner wanted the court to direct ECI to revise eligibility norms to permit cumulative or proportionate turnover requirements, consistent with practices followed in similar tenders issued earlier. According to the petitioner, tender conditions mandated that the bidder should have an average turnover of 100 crore in the last three audited financial years. The petitioner wanted the court set aside tender conditions, and direct authorities to revise the eligibility criteria.
