How can we stop rights of 150 million users for exams? Delhi HC reserves verdict in Telegram challenge to ban

The Delhi High Court on Thursday reserved its verdict on the petition filed by instant messaging platform Telegram challenging the decision to ban its operations in India till June 22 in view of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test undergraduate (NEET-UG) re-exams..During the course of the hearing, Justice Tejas Karia asked counsel for the Central government,"How can we stop the rights of 150 million people just because one set of citizens are appearing in examinations?".At the outset of today's hearing, the Court asked Senior Advocate Dhruv Mehta, appearing for Telegram,"Just to understand your argument, you are questioning the nature of the power here by saying it's not an emergency. Second, you are saying information can be blocked, not the entire platform and third is application of mind by the Secretary and proportionality?"After Mehta agreed, the Court asked,"What it seems is that there were series of meetings and you were not able to satisfy...What is your take? Were you able to satisfy the government with regards to the steps you have taken to meet the situation?"The Court then focussed on the government's powers under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, under which the blocking order was issued."...whether they have exercised the power appropriately and whether there is proportionality. Also is it violating the fundamental rights of the users? You say you have 150 million users.".Mehta then submitted that the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) Secretary did not apply his mind while issuing the order. Referring to the blocking order, he argued,"The order says, "in the interest of sovereignty and integrity of India?" An examination like NEET will affect the sovereignty and integrity of India? What is the application of mind?"The Bench later observed,"See, we are all alive to what happened. There were so many students who were affected. The second aspect is to curb that one incident can you block the entire platform? See there is a power [under Section 69A]. That power can be exercised, to what extent can it be exercised that is the question...Let us hear the government. They have to justify it. If they don't justify, then it is in your favour; if they do, then you address in rejoinder."Justice Karia also said that being a significant social media intermediary under the IT Rules, Telegram has additional responsibilities. He added,"The question of fundamental right to freedom of speech is of your users. Karnataka High Court has held that you [the platform] don't have a fundamental right to freedom of speech."The Court then put forth a hypothetical situation: "Suppose a paper is leaked, by the time the order comes to you, the damage is done. What is your proposal? How can it be dealt with?"Mehta replied, "The issue is spread of canard regarding leakage of paper and money being collected. The paper alleged to be on the platform is not the real paper."The Court then asked,"How would one know that till the time the exams happen?".Appearing for the Central government, Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta began by submitting,"I will start with proportionality. We received a communication from NTA. They say there is a wider pattern. Ultimately, I will satisfy that the architectural design of the platform is such that some things even they can't prevent. Unlike other intermediaries, their architecture is different. What is being done on this platform can never be done on other platforms."He insisted that the government has taken a least restrictive measure to curb paper leaks, thus satisfying the test of proportionality. He said,"They say we are doing it [acting against paper leaks] manually. MHA has a unit called I4C, they give periodical reports. All lead to a conclusion that their [Telegram's] architecture is such that they are unable to do what is required in such circumstances.I will just give an example. In Telegram, one account user can create 40 bots. While in case of WhatsApp, it's one bot per user. They have multiplicity encouraging architecture and then the bots can further multiply."He further pointed out that Telegram's privacy policy states that the deletion of an account results in the deletion of all data, messages and media stored."In this report, it was also said that this is the most preferred platform for terrorist activities. They are facing problems in other jurisdictions as well because of this architectural design," he added..Comparing it to situations where internet blocking orders are passed, the SG said,"When internet is banned say in a particular state or part of state, only 10% people may be miscreants..." However, the Court said,"If there is a law and order situation, then it may be allowed. That is where the test of proportionality comes.SG Mehta then submitted, "Please bear in mind the public interest. We cannot ignore the feeling of students. They [Telegram] have a feature called date and time editing feature. Say on June 21 everybody has the paper, someone can post it on Telegram on June 22 and modify the date and time to say it was uploaded on June 18. This happened in 2024...Crores of students would be on the streets."He went on to say,"Students are agitated and understably so. The entire credibility of an exam at the national level is brought into disrepute. Thought that is not my consideration at this moment. The consideration at this moment is public order issue,"Since the "potential harm is huge", the SG urged the Court not to intervene..Also representing the Central government, Attorney General R Venkataramani argued,"The order is complete in itself. This platform, because of its architecture, is a Frankenstein. If a country like ours cannot take preventive action, then where do we go? A platform created for money says proportionality? The argument of proportionality is completely misconceived.".In his rejoinder arguments, Dhruv Mehta submitted,"He (SG) is relying on a report of I4C which is not the subject matter of the communication to me. In the interim direction, there is no reference to this at all."The Court then asked,"It seems you were aware of the structural issues with your platform."Mehta said that Telegram has replied to those concerns, but the Court observed,"We will deal with the procedure but what is troubling is the question is that is your architecture was not sufficient and that is why emergency powers were required."When Mehta raised the issue of Telegram's fundamental rights, the SG said,"It is a UAE-based company."On the editing and time-stamp issue, Mehta said,"They said that suppose exams are held on June 21, in the evening you can post the paper and then edit the message. That is not how it works. There is already a message, a historical message, you can edit this. You can backdate a message. The timestamp will not change. If you post on June 21, you can't say that it was posted on June 15."He concluded, saying that Telegram was complying with the rules..With that, the Court reserved judgment in the matter..In its writ petition, Telegram argues that the government has singled it out while other social media intermediaries continue to operate without restriction, violating Article 14 of the Constitution of India."[The] impugned Order proceeds on the impermissible premise that misuse by a subset of users justifies blocking of an entire platform. Such an approach, if upheld, would enable indiscriminate suspension of digital platforms, severely undermining constitutional protections of free speech and access to information," the plea contends.The company states that it held multiple meetings with government agencies from May onwards and submitted detailed responses outlining both proactive and reactive moderation measures.Telegram stated that after receiving specific URLs from authorities on June 9, it removed the flagged content within an hour. The company also claimed to have taken down more than 900 links related to unlawful NEET content and deployed artificial intelligence, machine learning tools and manual moderation to identify violations.."Shocking activities on Telegram": SG Tushar Mehta opposes plea in Delhi HC against temporary ban.The government temporarily banned the messaging platform, citing concerns that it had been used by organised cheating networks involved in the NEET-UG controversy. The decision followed the cancellation of the original NEET examination after allegations of widespread paper leaks and irregularities.The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) issued a direction under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, restricting access to the Telegram platform in India till June 22.Another order was issued directing the platform to disable, till June 30, the message-editing feature for messages already posted.The government has described the measure as necessary to protect the integrity of the re-examination scheduled for 21 June. Authorities argued that Telegram channels were being used to distribute leaked or fake question papers, coordinate fraud and manipulate message timestamps through the platform’s editing feature..Telegram's writ petition has been filed by Advocate Madhav Khosla.Attorney General R Venkataramani, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma and Central Government Standing Counsel (CGSC) Ashish Dixit appeared for the Central government.