Delhi High Court upholds temporary ban on Telegram till June 22

The Delhi High Court on Friday upheld the Central government's decision to temporarily ban the instant messaging platform Telegram ahead of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test undergraduate (NEET-UG) re-exams.

Justice Tejas Karia pronounced the verdict this morning.

"R1 (Government) was empowered under Section 69A to direct blocking of access to Telegram. Test of proportionality is satisfied ... The government's measures are least restrictive. It cannot be held that the order is disproportionate," the Court held, while dismissing Telegram's petition challenging the ban.

The Court concluded that the reasons cited by the government for the temporary ban were sufficient, given the emergent circumstances in which it made the move. The Court further held that the due procedure under Section 69A (blocking powers) of the Information Technology Act was followed.

The Court ruled that the government's blocking orders were well-founded and supported by reasons.

"The orders do not suffer from non-application of mind. We have also held that under IT Act, there is no reason to exclude the platform from the ambit of 'information,'" the Court added.

The government had 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. It also directed the platform to disable, till June 30, the message-editing feature for messages already posted.

Telegram challenged the order, arguing 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 company stated 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.

The Court had reserved its judgment in the matter on June 18 after hearing detailed arguments from Senior Advocate Dhruv Mehta for Telegram and Attorney General (AG) R Venkataramani and Solicitor General (SG) Tushar Mehta for the Central government.

Senior Advocate Mehta submitted that the Secretary of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) did not apply his mind in issuing the blocking 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?"

He reiterated that the platform was in constant communication with the government and that proactive steps were taken to take down flagged URLs and channels.

He said that Telegram also replied to the concerns regarding its structural issues and that it was complying with the rules.

SG Tushar Mehta argued that the government has taken the least restrictive measure to curb paper leaks, thus satisfying the test of proportionality.

He contended that Telegram's architecture is such that they are unable to do what is required in such circumstances. 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.

Since the "potential harm is huge", the SG urged the Court not to intervene.

AG Venkataramani had added,

"The (blocking) 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."

Telegram's writ petition had been filed through Advocate Madhav Khosla.

Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma and Central Government Standing Counsel (CGSC) Ashish Dixit also appeared for the Central government.

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