Telegram moves Delhi HC against temporary ban ahead of NEET UG re-exam

Telegram on Wednesday (June 17) approached the Delhi High Court against the Centre's temporary restriction on the messaging platform ahead of the NEET-UG 2026 re-examination, contending that the action has affected millions of genuine users across the country. The plea was mentioned before Justice Tejas Karia, who agreed to take up the matter later in the day.

The legal challenge follows the government's decision to suspend access to Telegram until June 22 on the recommendation of the National Testing Agency (NTA). The restriction covers the June 21 re-test and the period immediately after it, with authorities saying the measure is intended to check cheating, fake paper leak claims and misinformation surrounding the examination.

Telegram CEO slams temporary ban

Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov criticised the move, saying it penalises ordinary users instead of those involved in leaking examination material.

Also Read: NTA defends Telegram curbs ahead of NEET UG 2026 re-exam, says 'move to stop fraud'

"India's IT ministry banned Telegram for one week because some users shared leaked exam questions. This punishes 150M+ ordinary Telegram users in India - not the insiders who leaked the exam materials. And the ban hasn't stopped anything. The leaks just moved to other apps," Durov stated in a post on X.

‘Taken down hundreds of channels’

Durov said Telegram had recently taken down hundreds of channels involved in sharing leaked examination material and scams linked to the test.

Also Read: NEET UG 2026: NTA extends exam duration, adds more rough-work pages for candidates

"Over the past few weeks, we removed hundreds of channels sharing leaked exam materials and related scams in India. We're also making the "edited" label more visible to prevent backdating scams. Telegram is a force for good. Banning it - even temporarily - is a mistake," he stated.

The Telegram chief also accused Reliance of disrupting access to the platform for users outside India, including in the UAE. A PTI report quoted a senior telecom industry official rejecting the allegation, describing it as "fake news", and claiming Durov had confused Reliance Communications with Reliance Industries Ltd.

Allegations against Reliance

"Such abuse of global Internet routing is alarming. I wouldn't be surprised if Reliance/WhatsApp were also behind the recent lobbying effort to ban Telegram in India," he said.

Also Read: IAF to airlift NEET re-exam papers: 'India copying wrong things from China'

The NTA has defended the restriction, saying it was necessary to prevent malpractice and curb the circulation of misleading content related to the examination.

"We will not let anything go wrong. We will take all possible actions to ensure that the examination is conducted without any malpractice," said NTA Director General Abhishek Singh.

NTA defends restriction

The order was issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000. Telegram has also been directed to disable its message-editing feature for already-posted messages in India until June 30.

Meanwhile, the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) termed the restrictions a "band-aid solution" and "disproportionate". IIT Kanpur Director Manindra Agrawal, however, said Telegram's editing feature could be misused to make fake paper leak claims appear authentic, creating confusion among students.

(With agency inputs)