Delhi HC Upholds Temporary Ban on Telegram Ahead of NEET Re-Exam

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New Delhi (IANS): The Delhi High Court on Friday upheld the Centre’s decision to temporarily suspend Telegram’s services across India ahead of the NEET (UG) 2026 re-examination. The court held that the government strictly followed legally prescribed procedures when it invoked its emergency blocking powers.

In rejecting Telegram’s plea against the restrictions, a single-judge Bench of Justice Tejas Karia ruled that the impugned orders satisfied the test of proportionality and justified the measures given the circumstances surrounding the nationwide medical entrance examination.

“After considering all arguments, we found that given the emergency nature of impugned orders, respondents (authorities) strictly followed the procedure,” the Delhi High Court said while rejecting the petition.

“We have also held that the test of proportionality is satisfied as requirements, namely legitimate objective, nexus of action with the measure adopted, necessity of the measure are met and least restrictive measures have been adopted,” Justice Karia added.

Telegram had approached the Delhi High Court to challenge the Centre’s decision, which suspends its services across India until June 22 and disables its message-editing feature until June 30.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) issued these restriction directives under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, following recommendations from the National Testing Agency (NTA).

The Union government defended the move, contending that Telegram’s architecture and repeated misuse for examination-related frauds left authorities with “no other option” but to invoke emergency blocking powers.

In an affidavit filed before the Delhi High Court, the Centre stated that it took the decision only after “exhausting alternatives.” These alternatives included repeated requests for targeted takedowns of unlawful content, which the government found inadequate.

According to the government, the NTA had identified several Telegram channels that allegedly sold purported NEET question papers and ran examination-related scams.

The Centre claimed that the channels, groups, and bots under scrutiny reached nearly 1.46 lakh accounts.

The Union government also relied on reports from the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C). It argued that Telegram’s anonymity features, large subscriber channels, automated bots, forwarding mechanisms, and cloud-based architecture posed significant challenges for law enforcement agencies.

The Centre maintained that content-specific takedowns did not work because users could recreate channels and bots within minutes. This rapid recreation made temporary, platform-wide restrictions necessary to prevent further misuse ahead of the re-examination.

The NTA will conduct the NEET (UG) 2026 re-examination on June 21 for over 22 lakh candidates following allegations of question paper leaks during the original examination on May 3.