India court upholds Telegram block during medical exam probe

A New Delhi court upheld India’s temporary block on Telegram, allowing the government to keep the messaging app offline while investigators pursued a cheating probe tied to medical entrance exams. The ruling kept in force a June 16 to June 22 restriction that had already forced telecom operators and app stores run by Google and Apple to restrict access in India.

The National Testing Agency said the block responded to the “organised use” of Telegram by cheating rackets targeting the NEET-UG 2026 re-examination scheduled for June 21, 2026. The government argued the platform had become a channel for circulating allegedly leaked exam papers after last month’s cancellation of India’s undergraduate medical entrance test, a move that affected about 2.3 million students and sparked protests in several parts of the country.

Justice Tejas Karia held that the state was empowered under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act to block public access to Telegram. The Delhi High Court found the order proportional and accepted the government’s claim that it had followed the required statutory procedure. Reuters also reported that the government ordered Telegram’s message-editing feature disabled until June 30, 2026, a narrower restriction that remained in place alongside the broader block.

Telegram argued that authorities should have targeted specific content, channels or users instead of cutting off the entire platform. In court, the Centre said Telegram had repeatedly been asked to proactively monitor and curb illegal and suspicious channels, but had not taken meaningful action. The court reportedly noted that Telegram’s public channels, cloud-based storage, bot ecosystems and username-based operation made it easier for unlawful material to spread quickly.

The decision immediately intensified concerns among digital rights advocates. The Internet Freedom Foundation called the measure a “band-aid solution” and said it would punish ordinary users instead of addressing the source of exam leaks. Telegram founder Pavel Durov said the ban punished more than 150 million Telegram users in India, and he argued that the leaks simply moved to other apps.

The case now stands as a major test of how far Indian authorities can go in disrupting an entire communications platform during a high-stakes public examination. By endorsing a nationwide block rather than a narrower content-based order, the court gave the government a broad tool for fighting exam fraud, but one that could shape future disputes over platform liability, free expression and the limits of emergency intervention.