The Delhi High Court on Friday upheld the Centre’s decision to temporarily suspend Telegram services across the country ahead of the NEET (UG) 2026 re-examination, observing that the government had strictly followed the procedure prescribed under law while invoking emergency blocking powers.
Rejecting a petition filed by Telegram challenging the restrictions, Justice Tejas Karia held that the impugned orders satisfied the test of proportionality and were justified in view of the circumstances surrounding the nationwide medical entrance examination.
“After considering all arguments, we found that given the emergency nature of the impugned orders, the respondents strictly followed the procedure,” the court said.
The court further held that the requirements of legitimate objective, nexus with the measures adopted, necessity and least restrictive means had been met.
Telegram had challenged the Centre’s decision to suspend its services till June 22 and disable its message-editing feature till June 30.
The restrictions were imposed under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, following directions issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) based on recommendations from the National Testing Agency (NTA).
Defending its decision, the Centre told the court that Telegram’s architecture and repeated misuse for examination-related frauds left authorities with no alternative but to invoke emergency blocking powers. The government said it had exhausted other options, including repeated requests for targeted removal of unlawful content, which proved inadequate.
According to the Centre, the NTA had identified several Telegram channels allegedly involved in circulating purported NEET question papers and conducting examination-related scams. The channels, groups and bots under scrutiny reportedly had a combined reach of around 1.46 lakh accounts.
The government also relied on reports from the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), arguing that Telegram’s anonymity features, automated bots, forwarding mechanisms and cloud-based architecture posed significant challenges for law enforcement agencies.
It maintained that content-specific takedowns were ineffective as channels and bots could be recreated within minutes, making temporary platform-wide restrictions necessary to curb misuse ahead of the re-examination.
The NEET (UG) 2026 re-examination is scheduled to be held on June 21 for over 22 lakh candidates following allegations of question paper leaks in the original examination conducted on May 3. (IANS)
