Telegram restrictions imposed after less restrictive measures failed: Centre tells Delhi HC

New Delhi, June 18 (SocialNews.XYZ) The Centre has defended its decision to temporarily suspend Telegram's services across India ahead of the NEET (UG) 2026 re-examination, telling the Delhi High Court that the messaging platform's architecture and repeated misuse for examination-related frauds left the Union government with "no other option" but to invoke emergency blocking powers under the Information Technology Act.

In a short affidavit filed before the Delhi High Court in response to Telegram's writ petition challenging the suspension, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) said the decision was taken only after "exhausting alternatives" and resorting to less restrictive measures, including repeated requests for targeted takedowns of unlawful content.

“I state and submit that the impugned decision was taken after exhausting alternatives, which were less restrictive and included targeted takedown of unlawful content, but these would have been woefully inadequate," the affidavit filed by Mayank, Scientist-E with the Government of India, MeitY, stated.

The Centre argued that Telegram had become a key platform for the circulation of alleged NEET paper leaks, fake examination material, cyber frauds and other unlawful activities, posing a serious threat to public order and the integrity of the national examination system.

"This issue is both sensitive and extremely sentimental for the entire student community, and any further dilutions/compromise as regards the integrity of the examination process to be taken by as many as 22 lakh students pan India is potentially fraught with unrest and disruption with public order issues," the affidavit said.

According to the reply document, MeitY received a complaint from the National Testing Agency (NTA) on May 21 detailing a coordinated fraud network operating on Telegram under banners such as "Re-NEET 2026", "Paper Leaked NEET" and similar names.

The NTA claimed that the identified channels, groups and bots had a combined reach of nearly 1.46 lakh accounts and were openly advertising purported access to examination papers in exchange for money.

The affidavit said a meeting was held with Telegram officials on June 3, during which the platform acknowledged difficulties in proactively identifying channels involved in selling leaked papers and admitted that bad actors were misusing its "anonymity" features.

The government maintained that Telegram failed to take adequate proactive measures despite repeated concerns raised over several years.

"It was further conveyed that the issue concerning dissemination of illegal content is now out of proportion and that the Government can take a strict measure against the platform, since Telegram has consistently failed to proactively take measures to control the misuse of the platform," the affidavit quoted from the minutes of the June 3 meeting.

Defending the use of emergency powers under Rule 9 of the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009, the Centre said authorities had no viable alternative given the rapid proliferation of mirror channels, anonymous accounts and automated bots.

The affidavit referred to an example of a Telegram channel titled "NEET Mafia" with around 18,617 subscribers, alleging that it was being used to disseminate content relating to examination paper leaks, payment arrangements and advance booking schemes.

"Each subscriber may constitute a potential recipient, participant, facilitator, beneficiary or witness in relation to the unlawful activity being investigated," the Centre argued.

The Union government further relied on reports prepared by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), claiming that Telegram's technical features — including anonymity-enhancing tools, large-scale channels, automated bots, forwarding mechanisms and Cloud-based architecture — created significant challenges for law enforcement agencies.

"Telegram's combination of large subscriber capacity, anonymity features, Cloud-based architecture and ease of recreation of channels creates a persistent enforcement challenge," the affidavit said.

The Centre also contended that content-specific takedowns were ineffective because channels and bots could be recreated within minutes.

"Consequently, unlawful activity, and interim blocking under Section 69A is the only effective measure to break the cycle of instant respawning that Telegram itself documents," it stated.

Referring to the upcoming NEET re-examination, the Union government said its "prime consideration" was to ensure the sanctity and purity of the test and prevent any further controversy.

"The government is committed to hold Re-NEET examination in all its sanctity and purity," the affidavit said, adding that any delay in blocking access could have led to "mass student unrest, disruption of public order and incitement to commissioning of cognizable offence".

The Centre also argued that Telegram's commercial interests were outweighed by the interests of over 22 lakh candidates scheduled to appear in the examination.

"The perpetuated individualistic commercial prejudice/grievance of the petitioner is far outweighed by the interest of 22 lakh examinees, as also maintenance of public order and faith in the examination system," it said.

Telegram platform has challenged the Centre's decision to temporarily suspend its services across India till June 22 and disable its message-editing feature till June 30, contending that the restrictions are disproportionate and adversely affect millions of users.

The Union government imposed the temporary curbs ahead of the NEET (UG) 2026 re-examination slated for June 21, citing concerns over alleged paper leaks, misinformation campaigns and cheating networks.

The NTA has maintained that channel-specific takedowns and enforcement actions were insufficient to tackle the scale of the problem. The re-examination is being conducted following allegations of question paper leaks during the original NEET (UG) 2026 examination held on May 3.

Source: IANS