"Measures Not Disproportionate"
The Delhi High Court dismissed a plea filed by the messaging platform Telegram, upholding the Central Government's emergency order to temporarily restrict access to the application across India.
The single-judge bench of Justice Tejas Karia ruled that the government's emergency blocking action under Section 69A of the Information Technology (IT) Act was lawful, well-founded, and procedurally valid.
Key Highlights of the Verdict
Proportionality Satisfied: Addressing Telegram’s core argument that a blanket ban heavily penalized its 150 million Indian users, the Court held that the test of proportionality was met.
The High Court described the temporary suspension as the "least restrictive alternative" given the emergency nature of the situation. No "Non-Application of Mind": The Court rejected Telegram's claims that the order lacked sufficient reasoning, stating that both the initial blocking order and the subsequent Review Committee decisions were firmly backed by relevant material and proper statutory application.
Platform Scope Under Section 69A: The HC shot down Telegram's legal interpretation that Section 69A only permits blocking specific "information" rather than an entire platform or intermediary, clarifying that nothing in the IT Act excludes an app from the definition of "information."
Background of the Ban
The temporary restrictions were introduced by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) following recommendations from the National Testing Agency (NTA).
The Trigger: The ban was initiated to prevent fraud, the circulation of fake papers, and coordinated cheating ahead of the NEET-UG 2026 re-examination.
The initial May 3 examination had been cancelled by the NTA following widespread paper leak allegations, which are currently being investigated by the CBI. Duration: The temporary access restriction is effective until June 22, 2026.
Feature Restrictions: In tandem with the access ban, Telegram has also been ordered to disable its message-editing feature for already-posted content in India until June 30, 2026.
Authorities argued that the feature was being heavily exploited by cheating syndicates to fabricate "after-the-event" evidence of paper leaks.
The government successfully argued that Telegram's architecture—specifically its bot ecosystem, cloud storage, and username-based anonymity—made targeted channel takedowns highly ineffective, as operators could easily generate dozens of mirror channels instantly to distribute malicious content.
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