The government’s decision to ban Telegram in India has sparked a heated debate on X. A conversation on X gained significant traction after user Apurva Jain shared a personal account of her brother losing access to NEET PG study materials, videos, and paid study groups hosted on the platform.

“To stop one leaked NEET UG paper, you broke access for thousands of honest aspirants,” she stated. Jain also claimed that students were being forced to seek alternative channels to regain access to content they had already paid for. She further added, “The source of the leak walks free. The medium gets banned. The students get punished.” She concluded her post by asking: “This is the solution?”

Her post came a day after the National Testing Agency (NTA) welcomed the government’s directive to curtail access to Telegram in India until June 22 and require the platform to disable its message-editing feature until June 30.

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Telegram chief questions restrictions

Telegram founder Pavel Durov also slammed the decision. In a post on X, Durov mentioned, “India’s IT ministry banned Telegram for one week because some users shared leaked exam questions.” He argued that the move “punishes 150M+ordinary Telegram users in India, not the insiders who leaked the exam material”. He also claimed that the leaks had shifted to other apps.

Why was Telegram banned?

According to an NTA official statement issued on June 16, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) issued directions under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, restricting access to Telegram in India until June 22. The restriction covers the NEET (UG) 2026 re-examination slated for June 21 and the period immediately after it.

Defending the decision, NTA clarified that the measures were taken “in the interest of public order” and in response to the organised use of the platform by cheating rackets to defraud candidates” appearing for the NEET-re examination.

The agency mentioned that several Telegram channels had openly advertised purported access to leaked NEET question papers and demanded money from candidates and their families. NTA stated that no examination paper was available outside the secured examination chain. It also said that “the promise of any such material is, in every instance, a fraud.”

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The agency also defended the temporary suspension of Telegram’s message-editing feature, saying it had been used in some cases to create misleading “paper leak” proof by editing older messages after examinations while retaining the original timestamp.

NTA termed the platform-level restriction as a “measure of last resort”. Saying channel-specific takedowns and other interference had not produced the required response at the platform level. At the same time, the agency admitted that the action affects people who use Telegram for legitimate educational, personal and professional purposes and said it “sincerely regrets the inconvenience caused.”

Social media divided

One user questioned the effectiveness of the restriction, posting, “The real question is did the ban stop future leaks or did it just make life harder for genius students? Effective policy targets the source of the problem not everyone using the platform.”

Another user highlighted Telegram’s role as a learning platform, saying, “Most students in India prefer Telegram for serious education content, legal paperwork, paid lectures, code files, technical files and marketing portfolios. All banned for 7 days.”

Others backed the government’s decision. Another re-NEET aspirant wrote, “No one is punished. It is for the welfare of students. We are not having any problems.”

Disclaimer: The content in this article is based on a viral social media discussion and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only.