The National Testing Agency (NTA) on Tuesday welcomed the Centre’s decision to impose temporary restrictions on the Telegram platform in India ahead of the NEET-UG 2026 re-examination scheduled to be held on June 21, saying the move is aimed at preventing fraud and misinformation targeting candidates.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has directed temporary restrictions on access to Telegram in India till June 22, to cover the examination period and immediately after, NTA said in a statement. The ministry also directed the platform to disable the message editing feature in India until June 30.
According to the NTA, the actions were taken in response to the organized use of Telegram by cheating rackets that allegedly attempted to defraud NEET candidates through false claims of access to examination papers. The agency said that several channels on the Telegram application demanded money from candidates and their families in exchange for alleged access to the re-test paper, which it described as fake.
The NTA said the restriction on editing messages was intended to prevent the creation of fabricated “paper leak” evidence by allowing users to change old messages while retaining the original timestamps.
The agency acknowledged that the restrictions would inconvenience legitimate Telegram users, but said the measures were time-limited and necessary to protect the integrity of the check. He reiterated that the NEET-UG 2026 re-examination will be conducted as scheduled on June 21 and urged candidates to rely only on official NTA channels for updates.
NTA also thanked MeitY, Home Ministry, Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Center (I4C), Central Bureau of Investigation and state police forces for their role in tackling exam-related fraud.
