New Delhi: Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov has criticised the Indian government’s decision to temporarily ban the messaging platform ahead of the NEET-UG 2026 re-examination, saying the move punishes millions of users without addressing the root cause of exam leaks.
The Centre on Tuesday restricted access to Telegram until June 22 following recommendations from the National Testing Agency (NTA), which said the measure was necessary to curb organised cheating networks and prevent the spread of misinformation surrounding the medical entrance examination scheduled for June 21.
Reacting to the decision, Durov said the ban unfairly targets ordinary users.
“India’s IT ministry banned Telegram for one week because some users shared leaked exam questions. This punishes 150M+ ordinary Telegram users in India — not the insiders who leaked the exam materials. And the ban hasn’t stopped anything. The leaks just moved to other apps,” he wrote on X.
Durov added that Telegram had already removed hundreds of channels involved in sharing leaked exam materials and scams in recent weeks. He also said the platform was making its “edited” label more prominent to prevent misuse of message editing for backdating scams.
The NTA defended the restrictions, saying there was no fresh paper leak but fake messages claiming access to exam papers were causing panic among candidates. NTA Director General Abhishek Singh said the agency was determined to ensure a fair examination process.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) issued the order under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000. In a separate directive, Telegram has also been asked to disable message editing for already-posted messages in India until June 30.
The NTA said the feature had been exploited by channel administrators who edited older posts to insert question papers after exams and falsely claimed they had leaked them in advance.
The move has sparked criticism from digital rights groups and cybersecurity experts, who argue that blocking an entire platform is a disproportionate response and may not effectively prevent the circulation of misinformation or leaked content.
