India says Telegram must stay offline—for now

The verdict passed by the Delhi High Court on Friday upheld the decision taken by India’s temporary blocking of the Telegram service. It dismisses any claims raised by the Telegram application and approves the Indian government’s action of blocking the whole Telegram platform according to Section 69A of the Information Technology (IT) Act. This verdict carries wider implications for India than just the issue of Telegram.

The ban impacts Telegram’s roughly 150 million users in India, its biggest national market. In just a few hours of implementation, there was a drastic change in user behavior. Data suggests that there was an increase of 49% in downloads of virtual private networks (VPNs), as well as a quick shift to other messaging services.

Why did India ban Telegram?

This ban was a consequence of the claims made that there were channels on Telegram that were leaking the question paper for India’s National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), which is a very important medical test attended by more than 2.3 million students.

This request came from India’s National Testing Agency due to the leak of exam contents through Telegram, and the Indian government blocked the website for a period of seven days from June 16 until June 22, with a re-test conducted on June 21.

Section 69A of the IT Act allows the restriction of access to any kind of information if it is in the interest of the sovereignty, security, and public order. This raises the issue of the proportionality of restricting the whole site instead of specific channels.

Justice Tejas Karia holds that considering the emergency nature of the situation, the reasons supplied by the government were sufficient and the procedure under Section 69A of the IT Act was duly followed. The Court says the blocking and review orders are “well-founded and…

— ANI (@ANI) June 19, 2026

Justice Tejas Karia of the Delhi High Court opined that, in light of the emergent nature of the case, the government’s justification was good enough and the procedure as per Section 69A of the IT Act was properly followed, stating that the orders for blocking and review were well-founded and reasoned and did not suffer from any non-application of mind on the part of the authorities, even as it refused Telegram’s plea regarding itself being beyond the purview of “information” as per the Act.

The above reasoning is akin to the precedent set out in the Shreya Singhal case, in which the Supreme Court ruled Section 69A constitutional as long as its provisions were safeguarded by reason recorded in writing, application of specific grounds under Article 19(2) and a review mechanism of the blocking order in a manner subject to judicial scrutiny.

Telegram’s petition and India’s government response

Telegram appealed against the order by filing a comprehensive petition highlighting the fact that imposing restrictions across the entire platform is a punishment to lawful users because of the actions of a few users. According to court documents, Telegram argued that restricting the use of digital infrastructure is likely to erode constitutional rights concerning freedom of speech and access to information.

However, India argued that Telegram’s platform posed enforcement challenges. Government officials highlighted the fact that it was easy for the blocked channel to be restored, along with identity anonymity features, which posed a challenge in implementing the measures.

Telegram founder Pavel Durov condemned the restriction, explaining that when you ban harmful content from a platform, it does not disappear; rather, it just shifts to another platform. The company added that it had removed more than 900 links related to exam-fraud material.

India’s Solicitor General Tushar Mehta explained that there was a logical link between the temporary measures and preventing fraud within the period of retest.

Ban sparks VPN boom

The decision to enforce the ban brought swift compliance across India’s digital infrastructure. According to Reuters, the block was implemented by telecom operators, along with Apple and Google, by removing Telegram access and restricting network availability.

Soon after that came user displacement. The need for VPN services spiked drastically. According to TechCrunch, Proton VPN reported a 120% spike in registrations in India from the baseline, peaking at 150%, and Windscribe doubled its sign-ups during that time frame.

Competition among messaging services heated up. Downloads of Signal have spiked 72% on iOS and 322% on Android, and Viber gained 216% in downloads on Apple’s App Store, according to Appfigures data used by TechCrunch. Telegram’s companion app iMe showed the largest jump in popularity, having spiked from 827 daily downloads to 50,900.

This is a common trend following the enforcement of such a ban. The need for communication does not go away – it just shifts towards other applications and privacy tools. In this case, the ban also increased reliance on VPN infrastructure, showing how adaptable users are to access controls.