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Informist, Wednesday, Jun. 17, 2026

 

--HC notice to govt on Telegram plea over temporary ban ahead of NEET retest 

--HC to hear Telegram's plea against govt's temporary ban on Thursday 

 

NEW DELHI – The Delhi High Court Wednesday issued notices to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and the National Testing Agency on Telegram FZ-LLC.'s plea against the government's temporary ban on the messaging application till Jun. 22, ahead of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test re-examination on Jun. 21.

 

The court asked the government to place before it the documents that support its decision to temporarily ban Telegram in India. The court will hear Telegram's plea against the temporary ban at 1430 IST Thursday.

 

The ban came after the country's key undergraduate medical entrance examination was cancelled earlier this year following allegations of widespread paper leaks and irregularities. It has been alleged that the Telegram app was used to circulate leaked questions and communicate with students, middlemen, and others linked to the illicit network.

 

Telegram has also been directed to disable the message-editing feature for messages already posted till Jun. 30. The National Testing Agency said the feature was used "to fabricate after-the-event 'paper leak' evidence in case of several recent examinations". It claimed that a channel administrator "edits an older, innocuous message to insert the actual question paper after the examination has been conducted, and the resulting chat is then circulated as purported 'evidence' that the paper was in circulation before the examination".

 

Telegram argued that the action to ban the app suffers from non-application of mind. The government's order is overboard, it said, and the secretary in the ministry had issued it without examining it thoroughly. There are some things that are good and some that are bad, and just because some things are bad, you cannot block the entire platform, it argued. The government's ban is arbitrary and violates fundamental rights and the Right to Equality under the Constitution, Telegram said.

 

Telegram said it had taken steps to block the suspicious channels and accounts on the government's requests. It said it also deployed artificial intelligence to act against the offending channels and accounts. Telegram said it has 150 million users in the country and the ban would have an effect on students, educators, and others who rely on the messaging application for study material. If the government's temporary ban is bereft of any reasoning, then the final order would also suffer from the same shortcoming, it said. Banning the entire messaging platform is not sustainable in law, it argued.

 

Opposing Telegram's petition, Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta, appearing for the government, said shocking activities were being undertaken on the messaging platform. Telegram was repeatedly called and told about the issues and asked to correct its system, he said. But Telegram failed to do so, Mehta said. There is substantial material for imposing a temporary ban on the app, he said. 

 

The government said Telegram was given a hearing both before and after the direction to ban the app. The channels on Telegram were asking for payment in return for sharing leaked papers, it said. "I have seen the material. We shudder to think if there is any public unrest," Mehta said.

 

The blocking order against Telegram was issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology under Section 69(A) of the Information Technology Act, 2000. Section 69(A) gives the government the power to issue directions to block public access to any information through any computer resource, if it is satisfied that it is necessary or expedient to do so in the interest of India's sovereignty and integrity or defence, security of the State, or to prevent incitement to the commission of any cognisable offence.

 

The National Testing Agency, which conducts the examination, said that over the past few weeks, Telegram channels operating openly on the platform were demanding sums ranging from a few thousand to several lakhs of rupees from candidates and their families, in exchange for purported access to the re-examination paper. As per the agency, some of these channels were openly advertising their purpose through names like 'Paper Leaked NEET', 'Re-NEET 2026', 'Private Mafia', and 'Ree Neet Mafiaa'. 

 

The medical entrance examination conducted on May 3 was cancelled days later following reports alleging that the question paper was leaked ahead of the test. The National Testing Agency has faced flak from candidates and parents for its inability to secure the question paper. Several opposition parties, including the principal opposition Indian National Congress, have also criticised the government and the agency and demanded Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan's resignation or dismissal.  End

 

Reported by Surya Tripathi

Edited by Rajeev Pai

 

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