Telegram access restored after High Court declines to stay blocking order
Access to Telegram resumed on Tuesday (June 23, 2026) after a week-long blocking order imposed ahead of the NEET re-examination expired. The messaging platform had
Access to Telegram resumed on Tuesday (June 23, 2026) after a week-long blocking order imposed ahead of the NEET re-examination expired. The messaging platform had approached the Delhi High Court seeking a stay on the order, but Justice Tejas Karia held that the blocking direction was sufficiently narrow and proportionate. In its blocking order and a related press release, the Testing Agency (NTA) argued that Telegram’s ability to allow retroactive editing of messages without a visible trace could enable the spread of misinformation claiming that the NEET re-examination paper had been leaked in advance, potentially causing panic among students. The episode highlighted the readiness of telecom operators and Internet service providers to block messaging platforms at short notice, even as queries related to virtual private networks (VPNs) used to bypass the restriction more than doubled last week.
An executive of ProtonVPN, David Peterson, had his account withheld in India following a post citing statistics related to this increase. The account has not been reinstated. Apar Gupta, founder-director of the Internet Freedom Foundation, wrote on LinkedIn after the judgment that the High Court’s order would “normalise platform based blocking”, and that the government’s “documentation and reasoning for censorship will become easier to justify”. Clarifying that these were his personal views and not those of the organisation, Mr. Gupta said Telegram could have pursued “limited public advocacy [rather] than a court challenge”, arguing that the platform’s response had already made the blocking appear “unreasonable”. He added that the substance of the blocking order could still be challenged to limit its wider implications.
“According to me this can still be contested, as the definitions within the Information Technology Act, 2000 specifically on networks and computer resources are not considered comprehensively and the proportionality analysis [with respect to the court] lacks depth,” he argued. “A narrow window does exist to distinguish this judgment in future, but it must be opened with skill and proper timing.” IP blackholing Internet service providers (ISPs) and telecom operators typically block websites by filtering Domain Name System (DNS) queries, redirecting users to a blocked page when devices attempt to access a site’s Internet Protocol (IP) address. For Telegram, operators deployed a technique known as “IP blackholing”, under which alternate routing paths were created for Telegram’s IP addresses, effectively preventing users from reaching the service.
The BriefWire