NEET Re-Test: India Bans Telegram For A Week, But Its Misuse Goes Beyond Exams

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has blocked messaging app Telegram in India until June 22, and directed the platform to disable its message-editing feature in the country until June 30. The move comes ahead of the NEET-UG 2026 re-test scheduled for June 21.

According to the National Testing Agency (NTA), both actions have been taken in response to the organised use of Telegram by “cheating rackets to defraud exam candidates”. The restriction has been issued under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act. 

At the time of writing this, Telegram remains accessible to users in India despite the announced restrictions.

Last month, the government cancelled the undergraduate medical entrance exam held on May 3, after authorities found that the question paper had been leaked in advance. The exam was declared invalid on May 12, days after more than 22 lakh students had already taken it.

The leak triggered protests in several parts of the country, with students taking to the streets and online platforms to demand accountability. Among them were protests by the political outfit “Cockroach Janta Party,” which called for the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

Why is Telegram being restricted?

The NTA said the restrictions are aimed at cracking down on organised cheating rackets that use Telegram to circulate fake paper leak claims and scam students. Calling it the “last resort”, the officials noted that earlier attempts by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) to get the content taken down did not receive a satisfactory response from the platform.

The agency said Telegram channels with names like “PAPER LEAKED NEET” and “Re-NEET 2026” were openly soliciting students, charging anywhere from a few thousand to several lakh rupees for supposed access to the re-exam paper—claims it said are entirely fraudulent.

It also flagged a pattern where admins would post a normal message before the exam, and later edit it to insert the actual paper after it became public, while keeping the original timestamp. These posts were then circulated as “proof” of a leak. Disabling the editing feature, officials said, is meant to curb this tactic.

While acknowledging the block will affect lakhs of legitimate users, NTA said the restriction is temporary and will be lifted after June 22. It also made it clear that the editing ban until June 30 will not impact sending or receiving new messages.

Telegram: A Hub for Illicit Networks

As Decode has previously reported, the NEET paper leak did not occur at the exam centre level. Despite layers of security like biometric checks, extensive frisking, and AI surveillance, the leak took place much earlier in the distribution chain, a pattern seen before. In 2024, investigations found question papers were extracted from sealed trunks, scanned, and circulated to paying candidates.

Telegram has repeatedly emerged as a key distribution layer in such cases. It has been named in multiple exam leak investigations, where papers were shared in closed groups within minutes or hours of being accessed.

Apart from the paper leaks, Decode has documented how Telegram has been used to distribute illegal betting apps, sell child sexual abuse material, circulate deepfake-driven scam campaigns, and run underground markets for manipulated images of women generated using AI. 

Law enforcement officials have described the platform as “a nightmare” to police, with its encrypted architecture, distributed servers, and cross-border operations complicating enforcement. It has faced temporary or partial bans in over 31 countries over the years, including Iran, China, and Russia at different points, often over concerns around extremism, illegal content, or non-compliance with local laws.

Its founder, Pavel Durov, has also faced scrutiny from authorities in the past, including being detained in 2024 by French authorities as part of an investigation into illegal activities facilitated on the platform.

In the context of NEET, this wider ecosystem helps explain why Telegram often becomes central to exam-related fraud. Alongside platform restrictions, the NTA has introduced additional safeguards to prevent any recurrence of breach.

These include encrypted transmission of question papers, tighter access controls, biometric verification of candidates, and AI-led monitoring at exam centres, with printing pushed closer to exam time in high-security settings.