The Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed a petition by messaging application Telegram challenging the Union government’s ban on it till June 22, the day after the undergraduate National Eligibility cum Entrance Test re-examination, Live Law reported.
The court held that the Centre “strictly followed the procedure” under the Information Technology Act given the “emergency nature” of the order.
“The government’s measures are least restrictive,” Bar and Bench quoted the court as saying. “It cannot be held that the order is disproportionate.”
The court held that under the Information Technology Act, there was no basis to exclude the platform from the scope of the term “information”.
Justice Tejas Karia held that the government was empowered under Section 69A of the Act to order that access to Telegram be temporarily blocked. The section allows the government to block information from public access in the interests of national sovereignty, security and public order, among other grounds.
The ministry of electronics and information technology imposed the temporary ban on June 16 on the recommendation of the National Testing Agency. The agency had claimed that channels on Telegram had been demanding large sums of money from candidates and their families while fraudulently promising to give them access to the question paper for the entrance test for medical college admissions.
Telegram had argued that the government had singled it…
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