Targeted takedowns failed, says HC on Telegram ban

Targeted takedowns failed, says HC on Telegram ban

NEW DELHI: Terming the temporary ban on messaging app Telegram by the Centre as the “least restrictive measure” to ensure there is no paper leak or rumour to that effect ahead of the crucial NEET UG retest, the Delhi high court backed the decision on Friday, with two days to go for the exam. The court said Telegram’s technical features, including large public channels, cloud-based storage, extensive bot ecosystems, username-based operations, mirror channels and message-editing, made it particularly susceptible to misuse for spreading misinformation and facilitating fraud.

Justice Tejas Karia, in a 39-page verdict, also upheld the IT ministry’s decision to rely on Sec 69A of the IT Act to ban the entire platform instead of blocking a particular information in a bid to ensure a fair NEET-UG retest on June 21.

Targeted takedowns failed, says HC on Telegram ban

An application or platform, in its ordinary and commonly understood sense, is a computer programme or software designed to perform specified functions for an end user. In view of the express inclusion of ‘codes’, ‘computer programmes’ and ‘software’ within the definition of ‘information’ under Section 2(1)(v) of the IT Act, there is no reason to exclude an application or platform from the ambit of the said expression,” HC noted.

Holding that targeted takedowns had proved ineffective, the Delhi high court said the govt showed that “entity-specific interventions” such as removing channels, bots, and accounts repeatedly failed because offending entities continued to reappear through backup channels and audience migration mechanisms. It cited the “emergency nature” of the ban order to conclude that the Centre, upon consideration of the material placed before it, 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 in the country”.

It noted that “the limited temporal scope of these measures demonstrates that they are narrowly tailored and confined to the period strictly necessary for securing the stated objective”.

Justice Karia also highlighted that Telegram permits messages, including files, to be edited at a later point in time. “Such functionality may be employed to disseminate misinformation by editing messages sent prior in time by replacing the attachment to give the impression that the examination paper was leaked prior to the examination even though such editing takes place after conclusion of the examination. Accordingly, any subsequent editing of messages relating to NEET UG, 2026 may mislead the general public and, consequently, give rise to a potential public order situation,” the Delhi high court further observed, explaining why the govt has decided to keep the editing function disabled till June 30.

HC also found nothing amiss in the ban order, noting that temporarily blocking the Telegram platform satisfied the requirement of proportionality and “constitutes the least restrictive measure for achieving the stated objective”. The court pointed out that unlike other conventional platforms, Telegram is entirely cloud-based, thereby enabling the storage and retrieval of large volumes of content.