Delhi High Court issues notice to Centre on Telegram’s challenge to temporary ban ahead of NEET exam
The Delhi High Court on Wednesday (June 17, 2026) issued notice to the Union Government on a petition filed by the Telegram messaging App against
The Delhi High Court on Wednesday (June 17, 2026) issued notice to the Union Government on a petition filed by the Telegram messaging App against the Centre’s decision to suspend access to its services in India until June 22, citing concerns linked to the conduct of the NEET-UG re-examination. Justice Tejas Karia directed the government to place its response by Thursday (June 18, 2026) and the matter will be heard at 2.30 p.m. The matter stems from Center’s temporary suspension of Telegram after concerns emerged that organised cheating networks involved in the NEET-UG controversy were using the messaging app to circulate leaked or fabricated question papers and coordinate fraudulent activities. The restriction was issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act and is scheduled to remain in force until June 22.
A separate direction also requires Telegram to disable the editing of previously sent messages until June 30. The government has defended the measures as necessary to safeguard the integrity of the NEET-UG re-examination scheduled for June 21, arguing that Telegram’s features could be exploited to spread misleading content and manipulate the timestamps of messages. During the hearing, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who represented the Centre, alleged that several channels on the platform were allegedly being used to offer leaked examination questions in exchange for money. He added that the authorities had repeatedly alerted the company to these concerns and shared specific examples, but the issues persisted. Stating that the app had become a conduit for activities linked to examination malpractice, Solicitor General said, “If you give me time till tomorrow morning at 8 a.m., I will place shocking things before the court.” Senior advocate Dhruv Mehta, who appeared for Telegram, challenged the legality of the blocking order issued by the centre and contended that the same reflected a failure to consider the company’s responses and actions.
He told the Court that discussions between the platform and government agencies had been ongoing since early June and that Telegram had acted on lists of objectionable channels supplied by authorities. “We have removed all the contents that you have pointed out and that we found objectionable too,” he said, adding that the company has cooperated throughout the process. In its petition, the company stated that it has taken down more than 900 links associated with unlawful NEET-related material and has relied on artificial intelligence tools, machine learning systems and human moderators to detect and remove violations. It is argued that the government’s action is discriminatory because other social media intermediaries continue to operate without similar restrictions. The company contends that holding an entire platform responsible for the conduct of a subset of users violates constitutional guarantees, including the right to free speech and access to information.
The BriefWire