Pvt agency engaged for webcasting 2024 polls served EC notice
The Statesman | 17 July 2025
The Calcutta High Court on Tuesday directed the private agency, engaged by the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) office for streaming and webcasting of the seven-phase Lok Sabha elections in Bengal from 19 April to 1 June in 2024, to reply to the show-cause served to it by the Election Commission of India (ECI) by 21 July.
The additional CEO served the show-cause notice to the Panihati-based Pho Com Net Pvt Ltd on 7 July, bringing serious charges of alleged irregularities in connection with streaming and webcasting.
The additional CEO, withholding its bank guarantee of around Rs 3 crore and earnest money deposited (EMD) nearing Rs 10 lakh, sought clarifications on the notice from the company by 15 July.
Challenging the notice, the company filed a writ petition in the single Bench of Justice Amrita Sinha in the HC.
Dismissing the petition, Justice Sinha directed: “…the Court directs the respondent authority to permit the petitioners to submit their reply to the notice dated 7th July, 2025 within 21st July, 2025. If the petitioners file the reply within the aforesaid extended time period, then the authority shall proceed to consider the same. If no reply is filed, the authority shall proceed accordingly.”
“The CEO office had served a show-cause notice to us on 7 July seeking clarifications on some issues related to webcasting and streaming of the polling process after we demanded our money for bank guarantee and EMD. We moved the court that has extended the time period till 21 July for reply to the notice,” Tauqeer Eram, senior manager (business development) of the company told The Statesman on Wednesday.
“We would move the division Bench challenging the directives of the single Bench in the HC,” Mr Eram said.
“The single Bench has dismissed the petition and directed them to reply to our show-cause notice by 21 July instead of 15 July. We will wait till the deadline. The commission has withheld the bank guarantee and EMD money because they did not clarify the allegations mentioned in the notice,” Manoj Agarwal, CEO, said.