The Delhi High Court has upheld the temporary blocking of public access to the messaging platform Telegram, holding that the directions issued by the Central Government under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 were legally valid, procedurally compliant, and satisfied the constitutional test of proportionality.
Justice Tejas Karia dismissed a writ petition filed by Telegram challenging the interim blocking order dated 16 June 2026 and the subsequent final order confirming the temporary ban, both of which were issued in the backdrop of the alleged misuse of the platform for circulating fake NEET-UG 2026 examination papers, misleading information, and other fraudulent activities ahead of the NEET-UG 2026 re-examination scheduled for 21 June 2026.
Rejecting the petitioners’ challenge on the ground of non-application of mind, the Court observed that given the emergency nature of the interim blocking order, the reasons recorded therein were sufficient and the Central Government had duly followed the procedural safeguards prescribed under Section 69A of the IT Act and the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009. The Court further held that the post-decisional hearing and the detailed final order validly supplemented and fortified the interim order, in consonance with the statutory scheme governing emergency blocking directions.
The Court also found that both the interim and final orders were founded on relevant material, including reports from the National Testing Agency and the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), and contained adequate reasons demonstrating application of mind. Consequently, it rejected the contention that the impugned orders suffered from arbitrariness or procedural infirmity.
On the scope of Section 69A, the Court held that there was no reason to exclude an application or platform from the ambit of the expression “information.” Observing that Section 2(1)(v) of the IT Act includes codes, computer programmes, software and databases within the definition of “information”, the Court held that a software application such as Telegram falls within the legislative framework of Section 69A and may itself be subjected to blocking directions where statutory conditions are satisfied. It further noted that the definitions of “computer” and “computer resource” encompass software-based infrastructure through which information is generated, transmitted, received, stored or hosted.
Addressing the challenge on the ground of proportionality, the Court relied on the Supreme Court’s decision in Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India, (2020) 3 SCC 637 and held that the impugned measures satisfied the four-fold test of identifying a legitimate objective, maintaining a rational nexus with that objective, being necessary in the facts of the case, and constituting the least restrictive measure available.
The Court accepted the Government’s contention that Telegram’s distinctive architecture including large public channels, cloud-based infrastructure, automated bots, mirror channels, reserve channels, and rapid audience migration mechanisms enabled unlawful entities to repeatedly recreate channels and evade enforcement measures. It observed that despite repeated takedowns of specific channels and accounts, the fraudulent ecosystem continued to proliferate, rendering entity-specific interventions ineffective and making a temporary platform-wide block necessary to safeguard the integrity of the examination process.
The Bench further noted that the temporary blocking order was operative only till 22 June 2026, while the disabling of the message-editing feature was limited to 30 June 2026, demonstrating that the restrictions were narrowly tailored and confined to the period strictly necessary to prevent the dissemination of misleading information and protect public order in the immediate aftermath of the NEET-UG re-examination.
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Holding that the temporary blocking of Telegram and the disabling of its message-editing feature constituted the least restrictive measures available in the peculiar facts of the case, the Court concluded that the action of the Government could not be termed disproportionate and dismissed the writ petition along with the pending application.
