According to Reuters, India has imposed a temporary ban on the use of Telegram for instant communications, a platform that the Government claims was used by outlaws to defraud national medical examination candidates. Last month, the examination was also affected by allegations of leaking papers, resulting in the cancellation of millions of achievements.
On Tuesday, the National Examinations Agency under the Ministry of Education of India indicated that this unprecedented ban in India is the measure of “organized use of the platform against cheating groups to fraudulently participate in the National Qualifications and Entry Examination Review scheduled for 21 June 2026”. The ban remains in force until 22 June.
Last month, the Government of India cancelled NeET’s undergraduate entrance examination at the Medical School after authorities indicated that they were investigating allegations of leaking the test. According to the Government, some of the channels on Telegram (unnamed) used the platform to sell the examination papers. Protests broke out in many parts of India following allegations and the cancellation of 2.3 million candidates. These included demonstrations organized by the Indian Roach People’s Party, which called for the resignation of the Minister of Education.
According to Pavel Dorov, founder of Telegram, the ban penalizes more than 150 million ordinary Telegram users in India, “not internal personnel who divulge examination materials”. “And the ban didn’t stop anything. The leak was simply transferred to other applications.”
A defender of human rights also criticized the ban, claiming that it violated freedom of expression and did not solve real problems. The Internet Freedom Foundation states: “The closure of Telegram is only a stopgap measure, which is disproportionate to examination fraud”. The organization claimed that this would “punish ordinary users rather than address the systemic sources of examination leaks”.
In its statement on Tuesday, the Government of India stated that it regretted the inconvenience caused and that the measure was a “last resort” because previous actions to remove such elements from the platform had not worked.
According to sources with direct knowledge, both Google and Apple have received government orders to temporarily install Telegram from their application stores and will comply.