A state court in India’s capital Delhi has asked Narendra Modi’s government to explain if the action taken against Telegram was proportionate. The Indian government has moved to ban the encrypted messaging app ahead of the upcoming NEET-UG retest, the medical entrance exam currently in the eye of the storm after it had to be scrapped because the question paper leaked.
The development comes after Telegral filed a plea at the Delhi High Court challenging the directive that was initiated by the Indian Education Ministry’s National Testing Agency (NTA) and the IT ministry. The NTA is responsible for conducting this annual national medical enterence exam in the country.
The Centre has been alloted up until Thursday to submit their reply to Delhi High Court’s query. Justice Tejas Karia will be tending to the matter at the court on Thursday afternoon.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta presented preliminary arguments before the court on Wednesday. A formal reply, however, on behalf of the Centre will be filed by Mehta and submitted to the court tomorrow.
Mehta reportedly told the Court that Telegram has repeatedly been asked to bring reforms to its services but the platform failed to do so.
Telegram, for instance, does not have a localized compliance team to handle law enforcement requests in India. In addition, the platform has no limit to adding members into Telegram groups and it also allows sent messages to be edited that lets malicious actors to backdate posts.
As per NTA’s official statement on blocking Telegram until June 22, the app’s messaging editing feature has been restricted till June 30.
While the NEET test is held only annually, this year, it is being conducted for the second time. The test for this year was originally held in May, however, its results were cancelled after the paper leak scandal made it to the headlines a few weeks ago. The cancellations led to several alleged suicides by aspirants who had appeared for the examination.
The NTA has justified its action against Telegram as a way to curb the spread of any misinformation ahead of the re-test.
Telegram claims that it has already removed over 900 links involving NEET-related content using AI identification methods.
“You need to block particular information. This is overboard order. You don’t completely block the platform…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,” Live Law quoted Telegram’s counsel as saying.
Telegram founder Pavel Durov has been reposting grievances from Indian students who are facing issues because of the platform’s restriction.
“For years, Telegram has served the people of India. It was never about profit — our operations there run at a net loss of tens of millions of dollars annually. But that doesn’t matter. We are proud to be used in India,” he said in a post on Wednesday.
More development on the case is expected on Thursday.
Meanwhile, billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio has dismissed Durov’s allegations blaming the teclo of restricting Telegram access for Indians abroad, including in the UAE.
“Recent posts on X have led to speculation regarding Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (AS55836) and a BGP route misconfiguration. We categorically clarify that Jio has not been involved in any such incident,” Jio said, responding to Durov’s allegations.
