The Delhi High Court on Friday upheld the Centre's temporary ban on messaging app Telegram, terming it the "least restrictive measure" to prevent paper leaks or rumours ahead of the crucial NEET UG retest, scheduled for June 21. With just two days remaining for the exam, the court backed the government's decision, citing Telegram's technical features that make it particularly susceptible to misuse for spreading misinformation and facilitating fraud.
Court's Observations on Telegram's Features
Justice Tejas Karia, in a 39-page verdict, highlighted that Telegram's large public channels, cloud-based storage, extensive bot ecosystems, username-based operations, mirror channels, and message-editing capabilities make it vulnerable to misuse. The court also upheld the IT ministry's decision to invoke Section 69A of the IT Act to ban the entire platform rather than blocking specific information, aiming to ensure a fair NEET-UG retest.
Targeted Takedowns Ineffective
The court noted that targeted takedowns had proven ineffective, as entity-specific interventions like removing channels, bots, and accounts repeatedly failed because offending entities continued to reappear through backup channels and audience migration mechanisms. The court concluded that the government was "satisfied that Telegram was being misused for the dissemination of exam-related misinformation, the circulation of purported examination papers, and other fraudulent and unlawful activities, which were likely to have serious implications for public order."
Limited Temporal Scope
Justice Karia emphasized that the "limited temporal scope" of the measures demonstrates they are narrowly tailored and confined to the period strictly necessary for securing the stated objective. The court also observed that Telegram permits messages, including files, to be edited at a later point in time, which could be used to disseminate misinformation by editing messages to give the impression that examination papers were leaked prior to the exam, even if editing occurs after the exam. This could mislead the public and potentially create a public order situation.
Editing Function Disabled Until June 30
The court explained that the government has decided to keep the editing function disabled until June 30 to prevent such misuse. The court found nothing amiss in the ban order, noting that temporarily blocking Telegram satisfied the requirement of proportionality and constituted the least restrictive measure for achieving the stated objective.
Unlike other conventional platforms, Telegram is entirely cloud-based, enabling the storage and retrieval of large volumes of content, which further justified the ban, the court added.
