Delhi High Court upholds temporary ban on Telegram during NEET exams

The Delhi High Court upheld the union government’s decision to impose a temporary nationwide ban on the messaging platform Telegram ahead of the NEET-UG re-examination till June 22.

Justice Tejas Karia dismissed Telegram's petition challenging the restriction, ruling that the government's emergency directive under Section 69A of the Information Technology (IT) Act was legally sound, proportional, and strictly followed due procedure.

Representing the government,
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta argued that individual takedowns were ineffective as operators quickly used Telegram's architectural features to recreate deleted channels and bots instantly.

Telegram's counsel countered the blanket restriction penalizes over 150 million ordinary Indian users for the actions of a few.

"Given the emergency nature of the impugned order, the reasons supplied in arriving at the decision were sufficient," the Court stated. "The test of proportionality is satisfied... It cannot be held that the order is disproportionate or that there was no application of mind," Justice Karia observed.

The Court also said that Telegram needs to disable its message-editing feature in India until June 30.