Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov has pushed back sharply against India's decision to ban the messaging platform for one week, calling it a mistake that targets the wrong people entirely. "Banning it - even temporarily - is a mistake," Durov said, adding that "Telegram is a force for good."
India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology invoked Section 69A of the Information Technology Act to restrict access to Telegram until June 22, in response to the National Testing Agency's (NTA) recommendation following the circulation of leaked question papers from the NEET (UG) 2026 examination on the platform. In a separate order running until June 30, Telegram has also been directed to disable its message-editing feature for all Indian users, a move critics say lacks any clear legal basis.
Durov, however, says Telegram had already been acting against the offending content. "Over the past few weeks, we removed hundreds of channels sharing leaked exam materials and related scams in India," he said. "We're also making the 'edited' label more visible to prevent backdating scams."
He argued that the blanket ban does not address the root of the problem. "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."
Internet Freedon Foundation (IFF) echoes the criticism
Digital rights group the IFF has independently raised similar concerns, questioning both the legal authority and the proportionality of the action.
The IFF argued that Section 69A, as interpreted by the Supreme Court in Shreya Singhal v. Union of India, authorises the blocking of specific information, not the shutdown of an entire platform. The group also noted that no legal basis has been identified for the message-editing direction at all.
The foundation pointed to what it called a contradiction in the government's own position. The NTA's press release acknowledged that targeted takedowns of channels, groups, and bots had already "contained the harm" caused by the rackets, and that "the security of the examination is unaffected." If targeted action was working, the IFF argued, the case for a blanket block falls apart.
The IFF also raised concerns about the timing and impact on students. The ban falls in the final days of NEET preparation, when many aspirants rely on Telegram for study groups, doubt-clearing sessions, and shared resources.
On transparency, the group flagged that only the NTA's press release has been made public, while the actual MeitY order and the reasoning of the review committee behind it remain unpublished, which, the IFF noted, runs contrary to the Supreme Court's directions in Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India, which require such orders to be published so they can be challenged in court.
The IFF called on the government to publish the Section 69A order, state the legal basis for the editing restriction, confirm whether Telegram was given a hearing, and lift the platform-wide block in favour of the targeted takedowns the NTA itself credited with limiting the damage.
As Durov put it, 'the people being punished are not the ones responsible.'
