On Wednesday, Telegram, a messaging application, filed a petition before the Delhi High Court to contest the temporary ban on its services in India by the government. This legal action follows an unprecedented order from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, which instructed telecom operators to block access to the platform until June 22 to curb fraudulent activities and prevent the widespread of leaked question papers prior to the NEET-UG 2026 re-examination on June 21.
The petition was taken up in an urgent hearing before a vacation bench of the Delhi High Court which agreed to hear the case later in the day. Attorneys for Telegram contended that the government’s move has impacted over 150 million users in the country, who have been legitimate users for personal, educational and professional ends. The temporary ban is a significant escalation of the government’s efforts to ensure the integrity of one of the nation’s most important entrance tests, but has sparked a huge debate about whether blanket bans make sense and are effective in fixing the problems.
The government’s decision comes on the heels of the cancellation of the initial NEET-UG test on May 3, which was done after an investigation into allegations of leaking of question papers and other irregularities. The CBI has been probing the case and over a dozen people have been arrested for the alleged leaks. The debate over the exam has led to protests across the nation, as students, activists, and opposition leaders call for transparency and accountability, urging attention to their perceived systemic issues in Indian exams. The situation has come under political spotlight with calls for the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
However, the National Testing Agency behind the NEET exam, noted the use of the Telegram platform by “cheating rackets” to defraud students and their families in an organized manner and recommended restricting access to the app. Agency officials said a number of Telegram channels were using the names ‘PAPER LEAKED NEET’, ‘Private Mafia’, and ‘Re-NEET 2026′ and extorting money ranging from fourteen thousand to a crore from NEET aspirants on the pretext of giving access to the re-examination paper. The agency has consistently stated that there is no examination paper without being secured in the examination chain and has repeatedly said that any offers in that regard are fraudulent and targeting students who are vulnerable.
Telegram has also been asked to suspend its message-editing functionality in India till June 30, as it’s feared that this functionality has been used to fabricate evidence of paper leaks. The NTA said that administrators would be able to edit previous messages and replace the attached files, keeping the original time and date stamp, thus appearing as if examination papers were shared beforehand. This is a skill that has been leveraged in a couple of recent examination controversies to create an impression and influence the perception of the integrity of examination processes.
Telegram founder and chief executive Pavel Durov has harshly condemned the government’s move, saying it is “ineffective and disproportionate.” In a post on social media platform X, Durov wrote: “India’s IT ministry banned Telegram for 1 week due to sharing of leaked exam questions – punishment to 150M+ ordinary Indian Telegram users, not to the insiders who leaked the exam materials. He also pointed out that the ban hasn’t done anything: “And the ban has done nothing, leaks have just shifted to other apps.
But Telegram’s efforts to curb the issue were being met with resistance from those who were exploiting its platform, Durov said, pointing to the fact that the platform had blocked hundreds of channels sharing leaked exam materials and scams that had been active in India in recent weeks. He also said that the company is trying to make the “edited” label more prominent to deter backdated scams, noting that the platform is a force for good and that “even for a short time, it is not a good idea to ban it”.
Internet Freedom Foundation, a digital rights group, has also strongly objected to the government’s move, saying that the blanket restriction was an “unproportionate response to exam cheating. The group proposed that the government does not have the authority to block access to certain information on a computer resource under Section 69A of the IT Act or to compelling a company to redesign an entire product in order to remove a feature that would otherwise be available for an entire country. The foundation defined Telegram shutdown as a “band-aid solution” as it will not resolve a systemic cause of examination leaks, but will punish regular users.
The blocking measure is announced by the foundation in the last few days of the preparation for NEET exams when thousands of students rely on Telegram for study groups, doubt solving and sharing of educational resources. It had said that the leakage of an examination paper would come from inside the system itself and that shutting down Telegram is simply a diversion from the number of times they have failed and continued to fail even as the media is focused on a ban, rather than stopping it. The organisation has urged the government to publish the order issued by the Ministry of Information and Technology (MeitY) and the NTA recommendation, which is based on the decision, as well as state the legal basis for the direction by the NTA for sending messages.
The temporary ban has sparked both student and public opinion. While some have welcomed the government’s resolve to ensure examination integrity, many have wondered how the government has decided to handle a relatively small number of fraudsters who rely on a large number of users of a platform. But critics have noted that those seeking to conduct illegal activity can switch to other messaging apps like WhatsApp, Signal or other alternatives, and question whether the move will aid in its goal.
