India has ordered Telegram to be blocked until June 22, citing concerns that fraudsters are using the messaging platform to target students ahead of a rerun of the country’s biggest entrance exam.
The move was announced on Tuesday by India’s National Testing Agency, which administers the National Eligibility Entrance Test (Undergraduate) (NEET (UG)), a medical college entrance exam taken by millions of students every year. The Agency said the restrictions were aimed at preventing people from using Telegram to sell fake exam papers and spread misinformation ahead of the rerun of the NEET test on June 21.
The restrictions include a nationwide, temporary ban on Telegram until June 22, a day after the retest. The agency also wants the platform to disable the ability to edit messages by June 30, arguing that the feature has been used to create evidence of leaked written exams after tests have been conducted.
“Both the measures have been taken in the interest of public order, in response to the organized use of the platform by cheating candidates appearing for the NEET (UG) 2026 re-examination,” the agency said.
The order was issued under Section 69A of India’s Information Technology Act, the country’s legal mechanism for blocking online services and content, the agency said.
Telegram CEO Pavel Durov criticized the move in a post on X, saying the week-long restriction would penalize more than 150 million users in India and not those responsible for leaking exam material.
Durov also questioned the effectiveness of the measure, arguing that “leaks were simply transferred to other applications.”
In a later post on his Telegram channel, Durov said the company had taken down hundreds of channels linked to leaked exam materials and related scams in India in recent weeks. He added that Telegram had made its edited tag more visible to help prevent so-called backdating scams.
The move drew immediate criticism from digital rights advocates. Advocacy group the Internet Freedom Foundation said the restrictions were a “disproportionate” response to exam cheating and questioned whether Section 69A allows the government to block an entire platform rather than specific content.
“Shutting down Telegram is a band-aid solution and a disproportionate response to exam cheating,” the group he said in a statement.
Defending the move, NTA Director General Abhishek Singh he said Some channels operated through VPNs or outside India, but they argued that restricting access would still reduce the pool of potential victims.
“Although the channels can continue to operate, if there is no clientele, fraud will be prevented and students will be protected,” Singh told local media.
Retest is organized after NEET (UG). rocked by a paper leak scandal last month, prompting a federal investigation and renewed scrutiny of the exam system. Indian authorities have since sought to beef up security around such national tests.
India is Telegram’s largest market globally, according to Sensor Tower, with an estimated 354 million monthly active users and nearly 600 million downloads since launch.
Telegram remained accessible to some users in India at the time of publication, and its messaging feature appeared to be working normally, even as Google removed the app from its Play Store in the country following the government’s announcement.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Note: This story has been updated to add comments from Telegram’s CEO and NTA Director General.
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