Today, June 19, Telegram lost its appeal to overturn the Indian government's order temporarily banning the messenger. A New Delhi court found the authorities' actions to be legal and justified, as they were aimed at protecting the integrity of an important medical college exam.
Today, June 19, Telegram lost its appeal to overturn the Indian government's order temporarily banning the messenger. A New Delhi court found the authorities' actions to be legal and justified, as they were aimed at protecting the integrity of an important medical college exam.
The blocking of the app from June 16 to 22 has sparked heated debate in the world's most populous country, with free speech activists saying it sets a worrying precedent that gives the government the right to restrict the use of any messaging platform whenever it sees fit, Reuters reports.
The government imposed the lockdown after the results of a nationwide medical school entrance exam were canceled last month amid allegations of exam question leaks.
The government “is empowered… to issue orders blocking public access to Telegram,” Delhi High Court Justice Tejas Karia noted in his ruling.
Telegram has over 150 million users in India and considers the country its largest market.
“This sets a disturbing precedent with implications for the open internet that go far beyond this particular case,” the Internet Freedom Foundation, a digital rights organization, said on social media X after the court decision was announced.
The blocking only affected Telegram. The authorities argued that the messenger was a unique case, pointing to such features as the ease of re-creating blocked channels and the ability to hide phone numbers and nicknames during user interactions. This, according to the government, creates “constant difficulties for maintaining law and order.”
Telegram founder Pavel Durov publicly criticized the ban, noting that it punishes ordinary users of the platform, while the sources of exam questions have simply moved to other resources.
The temporary ban, which caused Telegram to "go down" in India this week and disappear from app stores, was implemented by local providers, along with Google and Apple, in just a few hours.
It was the most high-profile legal battle this year between the global tech giant and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government. Last year, after a bitter legal battle with Elon Musk's Platform X, the government even reduced the number of officials who have the power to order content removal.
The Telegram blocking followed days of private disputes between the two sides, Reuters reported on Thursday, during which Indian authorities criticized the messenger for not proactively removing accounts that offered alleged exam ticket scams.
In court, Telegram accused the government of deliberately ignoring information about the company's internal security measures. The messenger said it had already removed more than 900 links with illegal content related to exams.
