Founder and CEO of Telegram Pavel Durov has criticized the ban imposed by centre. He said that said that the ban affects and “punishes” 150M+ ordinary users in India and not those who leaked the papers. Durov added that the ban has not stopped anything and that the leaks have moved to different apps.
“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,” Pavel Durov wrote on X.
Asserting that hundreds of channels sharing leaked exam materials and related scams in India were removed, he called the temporary ban a mistake. Pointing out Reliance’ ties with Meta- he also claimed that Reliance disrupted Telegram access, with users reportedly affected even outside India, including in Dubai/UAE.
Meanwhile, the NTA stated the restrictions aim to tackle organised cheating rackets and the spread of fake messages related to the examination.
According to NTA, Channel administrators could edit older messages, replacing attached files such as PDFs while keeping the original send-time stamp, which would allow the creation of fabricated “evidence” of paper leaks after examinations had taken place. Administrators would replace the actual question paper using this option and circulate screenshots claiming prior availability. The restriction closes this avenue for the post-examination period. The agency said that no genuine papers exist outside the secured examination process and that promises of leaked papers are fraudulent.
In the past few weeks, Telegram channels with names PAPER LEAKED NEET”, “Re-NEET 2026”, “Private Mafia” and “REE NEET MAFIAA” had openly demanded payments ranging from a few thousand to several lakhs of rupees for purported access to the paper.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) on Tuesday imposed a temporary ban under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000. In a separate order it also instructed the messaging platform to disable the message-editing feature for already-posted messages in India until June 30.