An Indian court on Friday rejected Telegram’s appeal against a temporary ban, a setback for the social media app which had challenged the prohibition imposed to curb alleged exam-related fraud.
The ruling comes just days before the national undergraduate medical entrance exam is conducted on Sunday, a month after the results of the same test were cancelled following allegations that questions had been leaked in advance.
The ban on Telegram, set to remain in place until 22 June, was announced earlier this week by the IT ministry. It was prompted by concerns over channels on the app claiming to offer questions from the upcoming exam for sale. Authorities said that even if these questions proved to be fake, such activity would still defraud candidates.
The ban, which took Telegram offline and removed it from app stores, was implemented within hours by Indian telecom companies, as well as tech giants Google and Apple, marking the most high-profile court tussle between a global tech firm and the Indian government this year.
In the ruling, Delhi High Court judge Tejas Karia affirmed that the government order banning the app was “reasoned” and had “strictly followed the legal procedure”.
Telegram, which counts over 150 million users in India, its largest market, had founder Pavel Durov publicly criticise the ban, arguing that it punished the platform’s users while the source of leaks had simply moved elsewhere.
The ban followed days of private sparring, during which the Indian government reportedly rebuked Telegram for not proactively removing accounts offering purported leaked exam papers.
Telegram, however, rebutted the government’s account of the meetings in its court filing, describing it as “one-sided and inaccurate” and claiming it “deliberately” omitted details of the company’s proactive processes.
Telegram said that it took down more than 900 links involving unlawful exam-related content.
