New Delhi, June 19: The Delhi High Court on Friday upheld the Central government’s decision to temporarily restrict access to the Telegram messaging platform ahead of the NEET-UG 2026 re-examination, ruling that the move was “not disproportionate” and was within the government’s legal powers.
A vacation bench headed by Justice Tejas Karia observed that the Centre’s order was the “least restrictive” measure available to safeguard the integrity of the national-level medical entrance examination. The court also held that the government was empowered to block access to the platform under the law. A detailed judgment is expected to be released later.
Telegram had challenged the government’s order, arguing that the temporary restriction affected more than 150 million users in India and questioning the legality of the decision.
The National Testing Agency (NTA) had cancelled the NEET-UG 2026 examination conducted on May 3 following allegations of a paper leak. The matter is currently under investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), while the re-examination has been scheduled for June 21.
Acting on the recommendation of the NTA, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) issued an order on June 16 under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, directing internet service providers to temporarily restrict access to Telegram in India until June 22.
In a separate directive, the government also instructed Telegram to disable its message-editing feature for already-posted messages in India until June 30, 2026. According to the government, the step was taken to prevent the creation or alteration of misleading content that could falsely claim evidence of paper leaks related to national examinations.
