Telegram has approached the Delhi HC challenging MeitY's temporary restriction on the platform in India
The matter is scheduled to be heard today by a vacation bench of Justice Tejas Karia.
The development comes a day after the Centre temporarily restricted access to Telegram in India until June 22 ahead of the NEET (UG) 2026 re-examination scheduled for June 21
A day after a temporary restriction was announced by the MeitY, messaging platform Telegram has approached the Delhi High Court (HC) to challenge the decision.
According to a Live Law report, the matter was mentioned before a vacation bench of Justice Tejas Karia, which agreed to hear the case later today.
For context, the Centre’s decision to temporarily restrict access to the platform in India till June 22 ahead of the NEET (UG) 2026 re-examination scheduled for June 21. The decision was taken following recommendations from the National Testing Agency (NTA).
Since then, the Telegram app has been removed from the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store in India. While existing users were initially able to access the platform, new users have been unable to make fresh registrations. Today, the platform is inaccessible across devices and irrespective of prior use.
Taking to his official handle on X, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov said the action unfairly penalises more than 150 Mn users in India instead of targeting those responsible for leaking examination material.
“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,” Durov said.
He also claimed the restriction had failed to stop the spread of leaked material, arguing that such activity had simply shifted to other platforms.
In a separate post, Durov alleged that Indian telecom operator Reliance Industries was disrupting access to Telegram for users outside India through alleged BGP hijacking. To be clear, BGP hijacking is the illegitimate takeover of groups of IP addresses by corrupting Internet routing tables maintained using the border gateway protocol.
He suggested the action could be linked to Telegram’s competition with WhatsApp. To note, WhatsApp parent Meta and RIL have announced partnerships around building AI data centres as well as joined hands to set up an AI joint venture. As of now, RIL has not publicly responded to the allegations made by Telegram’s CEO.
Notably, India is Telegram’s largest market, accounting for more than 20% of the platform’s global user base.
At the heart of the matter are NTA’s allegations against Telegram’s use in organised cheating rackets which had some connection to the NEET (UG) 2026 question paper leak. Besides, the testing agency also alleged that the platform was used to spread misinformation and circulate false claims of paper leaks.
The agency alleged that Telegram’s message-editing feature enabled channel administrators to alter previously published posts and attach actual question papers after the examination while keeping the original timestamp intact. This created a false impression that the papers had been leaked before the exam.
It alleged that several Telegram channels, including “PAPER LEAKED NEET”, “Re-NEET 2026”, “Private Mafia” and “REE NEET MAFIAA”, were operating on the platform and demanding money from candidates and their families in exchange for purported access to the examination paper.
The body said the measures were taken to maintain public order ahead of the NEET (UG) 2026 re-examination scheduled for June 21. The NEET-UG 2026 examination, originally held on May 3, was cancelled by the NTA following a multi-state paper leak, triggering widespread protests from students.
The CBI is currently probing the alleged scam.
The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), in coordination with state police forces and NTA, had already taken down multiple channels, groups and bots linked to the racket. However, the agency said these actions were insufficient to address the issue.
“The directions issued today by MeitY have been made following references by NTA and the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education, drawing attention to the structural limits of channel-by-channel action and seeking graduated platform-level compliance,” the agency said.
According to NTA, the move was intended as a limited and proportionate response, combining a temporary access restriction during the examination period with a feature-specific compliance requirement afterwards.
Source: Inc42 - Startups
