The Delhi High Court on Thursday reserved its verdict on a petition challenging the temporary ban on the Telegram messaging platform ahead of the upcoming NEET-UG re-examination. The High Court has asked the parties to file written replies by 7 pm. This comes two days after the Centre’s decision to suspend access to the platform service in India till June 22, citing only retesting concerns
At the hearing, the Center said that it has repeatedly Telegram Messaging apps are being asked to take active steps to monitor illegal and suspicious channels.
Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta told the court that “nothing was done” in the case. Citing architectural shortcomings, Mehta justified the need for the temporary ban on Telegram announced on June 16 ahead of the re-examination to be held on June 21.
Telegram’s security flaws and the threat of bot channels
He said, more than 22 lakh students will appear in the exam and their families are also associated with them. If our guesses prove to be true then a law and order situation may arise.
Mehta, appearing for the Centre, said that most of the channels on the platform are bots. Citing the report of the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Center (I4C), he said, in Telegram, one account can create 40 bots. In WhatsApp, it is one bot for every user.
The report says that Telegram’s platform is not as capable of dealing with the current situation as it is in the case of other messaging apps. He said that the platform works through cloud infrastructure. People who commit crimes cannot be tracked.
Can users’ rights be restricted?
He said, Telegram has had to face terrorist activities of other countries. Other countries have also taken action on the platform due to its misuse, he further said that the government has also given a list of actions taken against Telegram by other countries. Mehta further said, the entire people of one channel, around one lakh, can switch to another channel in a matter of seconds. This is only for Telegram and poses a serious threat.
The court asked, can you stop the rights of users to protect someone else’s rights? During the hearing, the court questioned the government’s stand and asked whether the rights of app users could be curtailed because some people were misusing it.
Can you restrict someone else’s rights to protect someone else’s rights? On this, Mehta said: When Internet is banned in any state or any part of the state, only 10% of the people are criminals and the rest are the general public.
Telegram’s arbitration and emergency powers
Apart from this, he said that Telegram can be misused because the app has the facility to edit the date and time. In 2024, this happened. The question paper was posted after the exam was over, but they edited the date to the previous day of the exam and then students were protesting on the streets alleging that the paper was leaked.
On the other hand, Telegram’s lawyer Dhruv Mehta said that an emergency request had come from NTA. The High Court said that the request had come from NTA. The authority will decide whether it was an emergency or not. Delhi High Court asked the lawyer of petitioner Telegram to give arguments on the final order. Telegram’s lawyer Dhruv Mehta said that there is a legal flaw in the order. This only confirms the interim instructions.
Read this also- Telegram challenged the government’s decision in the court, know what the law says
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