The Centre’s step of suspending Telegram before conducting the NEET UG 2026 retest has received flak from Sarthak Sidhant, who is a Class 12 student and had earlier revealed the irregularities in the OSM System of the CBSE. In his response to this action by the Centre, Sidhant observed that the act of suspending the entire platform due to the spread of misinformation regarding the exam was not befitting of the NTA.
Explaining his position, Sidhant said, “Blocking Telegram nationwide, just because of NTA’s incompetency, is generally a bad idea since many teachers and other professionals use Telegram to share resources.” He added that Telegram serves several legitimate purposes beyond education. “Telegram is also widely used for many other reasons such as secure communication, media consumption, and many businesses and technical projects use Telegram’s API to create automated bots for customer service, etc,” he said.
Concerns raised as authorities tighten measures before re-examination
The controversy comes ahead of the NEET UG 2026 re-test scheduled for June 21. The examination is being conducted again after the original NEET UG 2026 test held in May was cancelled following an alleged question paper leak linked to insiders. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is currently probing the examination scandal.
As per reports, despite criticism of the restriction, the NTA welcomed the Centre’s decision to temporarily ban Telegram. The action followed the circulation of claims on social media suggesting another paper leak ahead of the NEET UG 2026 re-examination. Both the Press Information Bureau’s fact-checking unit and the NTA dismissed those claims as fake and urged candidates to depend only on official information sources.
Agency says platform feature was being misused to spread fake leak claims
According to the NTA, Telegram’s message-editing feature was allegedly being exploited to create false evidence of paper leaks related to NEET UG 2026. The agency said channel administrators could edit older posts after an examination had taken place and replace attachments with actual question papers while retaining the original timestamp.
Reports say that the NTA claimed these edited posts could then be circulated as supposed proof that the paper had leaked before the exam. To curb such activities before NEET UG 2026, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has blocked Telegram in India until June 22. The ministry has also directed the platform to disable its message-editing feature in India until June 30.
The NTA said the measures are intended to prevent the spread of fake paper leak narratives and stop cheating networks from exploiting students and their families during the NEET UG 2026 examination process.
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Khalid Lateef is a Sub-Editor at NewsX Digital, specializing in Indian politics and global affairs. He also covers viral trending stories and major crime developments.
