Delhi HC Upholds Telegram Ban Ahead of NEET UG Re-Exam

Court Holds Centre's Emergency Order

Justice Tejas Karia dismissed the plea, holding that the Centre successfully made a case for exercising its emergency powers under the Information Technology Act. 

"R1 (Government) was empowered under Section 69A to direct blocking of access to Telegram. Test of proportionality is satisfied.The government's measures are least restrictive. It cannot be held that the order is disproportionate," the Delhi High Court said.

Centre Defends Action Under IT Act

The Centre taking a strong stand against organised cheating rings which allegedly were used in connection with the NEET-UG examination scam, sought to temporarily ban Telegram for its usage in the unfair practices.

It had also asked all service providers to temporarily suspend and block Telegram in the country, via an order of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) under Section 69A of the IT Act, from Friday till June 22.

The NEET examination, conducted in May has been cancelled by the Centre in wake of alleged paper leaks and other irregularities. NEET (UG) 2026 re-examination would be conducted on June 21. 

Message Edit Feature Under Scrutiny

The government through its attorney general, R Venkatramani had earlier justified the blanket ban on Telegram for the purpose of preventing unfair means.

Centre had submitted before the Court that the message-editing function on Telegram in the country will remain disabled until June 30. This, the Centre claimed, was to stop scammers who had used this functionality to dupe gullible candidates by faking paper leak claims by modifying older messages or tampering with attachments, without changing the timestamp. 

Telegram Challenges Centre's Emergency Action

The government attorney had, however, not presented enough material to justify why an emergency order for banning the platform and not specific objectionable content was warranted, argument Senior advocate Dhruv Mehta for Telegram had presented to the court.

“The order says it is in the interest of sovereignty and integrity of India. An examination like NEET will affect the sovereignty and integrity of India? What is the application of mind?” he said.