NEW DELHI – The Indian government has announced a temporary ban on the Telegram messaging application across the country, effective until midnight on June 22, 2026. This decisive action comes in response to widespread concerns over alleged paper leaks for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), a critical medical entrance examination.
Ensuring NEET Re-Exam Security After Previous Leak
The ban is a direct effort to bolster NEET re-exam security for the rescheduled examination on June 21. The original NEET exam in May was compromised by a paper leak, impacting more than 2.3 million aspiring medical students nationwide. Authorities believe Telegram channels were instrumental in facilitating these leaks and subsequent cyber fraud.
The National Testing Agency (NTA), responsible for conducting the NEET, stated that the temporary ban was implemented after months of monitoring various Telegram channels. These channels, including those explicitly named “PAPER LEAKED NEET,” “Re-NEET 2026,” “Private Mafia,” and “REE NEET MAFIAA,” were allegedly used to openly distribute exam papers and solicit payments ranging from thousands to lakhs of rupees from candidates and their families.
Preventing Fabrication of 'After-the-Event' Leaks
In addition to the app ban, Telegram has been ordered to disable its message editing feature for all previously posted messages within India until June 30, 2026. This specific directive aims to counter a sophisticated method of fabricating evidence of leaks.
“The feature has been used to fabricate after-the-event 'paper leak' artefacts: a channel administrator edits an older, innocuous message to insert the actual question paper after the examination has been conducted, and the resulting chat is then circulated as purported 'evidence' that the paper was in circulation before the examination,” explained an NTA official. “The MeitY direction closes this avenue of fabrication for the post-examination window in which such artefacts have historically been deployed.”
The NTA described these measures as “calibrated and bounded in time,” emphasizing that they were taken as a “measure of last resort.” Previous attempts, such as requesting the takedown of specific channels and groups, had failed to adequately address the problem. The agency reiterated that no legitimate exam paper exists outside its secure examination chain, branding any promise of such material as fraudulent.
This temporary restriction on Telegram is intended to create a secure environment for the hundreds of thousands of students appearing for the NEET-UG retest, safeguarding the integrity of the crucial medical entrance examination.