Telegram has approached the Delhi High Court challenging the decision of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to ban the messaging platform till June 22 to address apprehensions of circulations of fake NEET question papers.The re-examination of the NEET is to take place on June 21.The government has also ordered the platform to disable the message-editing feature until June...
Telegram has approached the Delhi High Court challenging the decision of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to ban the messaging platform till June 22 to address apprehensions of circulations of fake NEET question papers.
The re-examination of the NEET is to take place on June 21.
The government has also ordered the platform to disable the message-editing feature until June 30, 2026, as this function was reportedly being used to fabricate evidence of leaks.
A vacation bench of Justice Tejas Karia has agreed to hear Telegram's matter today.
Follow this page for live updates from the hearing.
Court: Notice. The respondents will be at liberty to file reply along with all documents in support thereof. List t 2:30 PM tomorrow.
Senior counsel for Telegram prays for interim order.
Court: Either we can stay entire order or we…
Mehta: That will amount to allowing the writ petition.
Court: Learned SG said that nothing will happen overnight.
Hearing ends.
Court dictates order.
Senior counsel: Satisfaction has to be of the secretary. If a particular procedure is prescribed, then action must be in accordance with that procedure.
Mehta: There is material. This is going on rampantly since several weeks. Any information can include all information. Thats a matter to argue.
Mehta: The papers have material. This has not happened overnight. We have been dealing with them since May, complaints received since May. I dont wish to go beyond this. This platform is being used and imagine the situation which may arise.
what is the percentage any platform can be misused by anyone who are (with bad intentions) : Court
Senior counsel: The order is bereft of any reasoning. You have abdicated your power. They may file reply but your lordships must consider that they should not take any coercive steps and there should be an interim order till they file reply.
Senior counsel: In minutes of meeting i indicated, lengthy mail, i gave steps required to be taken and were taken.
Senior counsel: Order suffers from arbitrariness. Lakhs of students are getting study material, apart from educators, there are business prospects also. You block everything. 150 million users in the country.
Senior counsel: Where is this ground that you are doing nothing? Where is the consideration? What material have you seen that i have acted? This has been going on from June 1. What is the emergency? Suddenly this happens. When i give my response on June 9 that i have deleted everything, you do nothing and then this is done suddenly
Senior counsel: I immediately said i have taken it (offending links shared with Telegram) down. This is within an hour we received the email. They provide another list and i abide by that too. Where is that consideration in the order?
Senior counsel refers to impugned order: Third and four are only paras recording satisfaction of the secretary….You don’t set out the material…This is not what the statute says. It says if there is something shocking offending information, you block that information which we did.