CURRENT AFFAIRS | 18 JUNE 2026
A day after the Centre temporarily blocked Telegram across India, the messaging platform raced to the Delhi High Court challenging the blocking order and pleading for interim relief. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) had issued the block on the request of the National Testing Agency (NTA), invoking Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, to ring-fence the June 21 NEET-UG re-examination from a fresh round of paper-leak rumours circulating on the app. The block is valid until June 22. Before a bench of Justice Tejas Karia, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta defended the order, telling the Court that the platform carried “shocking material” and had been “non-compliant” with takedown directions. The Court issued notice to the Centre and listed the matter for hearing on Thursday, June 19.
Telegram, second only to Meta’s WhatsApp in Indian reach with roughly 150 million users, argued that the order is disproportionate — that punishing an entire user base for the conduct of a handful of channel administrators offends the constitutional requirement that any restriction on speech be narrowly tailored. The Government countered that, because Telegram is not a “content-push platform”, its limited search feature “inherently limits the discoverability” of illegal content, and that at a June 3 meeting MeitY had specifically flagged Telegram’s failure to take “proactive” moderation steps. The clash sets up a textbook proportionality contest: a legitimate state aim (protecting the integrity of a national medical-entrance examination) versus a sweeping curb that sweeps in millions of lawful users.
The statutory architecture is worth committing to memory because CLAT loves to test it. Section 69A empowers the Central Government to direct the blocking of public access to any information “in the interest of sovereignty and integrity of India, defence, security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, or for preventing incitement to the commission of any cognisable offence.” The procedure flows through the IT (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking of Access) Rules, 2009, which build in a review committee and reasoned orders — the very safeguards that saved the provision in court. Intermediaries such as Telegram separately enjoy conditional safe-harbour immunity under Section 79, read with the IT Rules, 2021, provided they observe due diligence and comply with lawful directions. Lose that compliance, and the safe harbour can evaporate.
The anchor precedent is Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (2015), where the Supreme Court struck down the vague Section 66A as an unconstitutional fetter on free speech but expressly upheld Section 69A and the Blocking Rules, precisely because the latter carry procedural safeguards and a narrowly defined set of grounds. Any challenge to the Telegram order must then run the gauntlet of Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India (2020), which requires that restrictions on internet access be necessary, proportionate and temporary, and that the State adopt the least restrictive measure available. A crucial distinction the aspirant must hold firm: a “block” of a specific platform under Section 69A is legally distinct from an internet “shutdown” ordered under the Telecom Suspension Rules — conflating the two is a classic trap.
Section 69A, IT Act 2000, lets the Centre block online information on six enumerated grounds (sovereignty, defence, security, friendly relations, public order, incitement to an offence), operationalised through the IT Blocking Rules, 2009. Section 79 grants intermediaries conditional safe harbour, subject to the IT Rules, 2021. Article 19(1)(a) protects free speech; Article 19(2) lists the only permissible restrictions. Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (2015) upheld Section 69A while striking down Section 66A; Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India (2020) requires internet curbs to be necessary, proportionate and temporary.
This story bundles four high-frequency Legal Reasoning hooks: the Section 66A-versus-69A distinction, the proportionality doctrine from Anuradha Bhasin, intermediary safe harbour under Section 79, and the block-versus-shutdown contrast. Expect a passage that hands you a fact pattern and asks you to map the exact statutory power to an Article 19(2) ground, or to judge whether a blanket block is the “least restrictive” option. The free-speech-versus-public-order balance is a perennial CLAT theme.
| Order issued by | MeitY, on NTA’s request |
| Legal basis | Section 69A, IT Act 2000 |
| Court hearing the plea | Delhi HC, Justice Tejas Karia (notice issued) |
| Next hearing | June 19, 2026 |
| Block valid until | June 22, 2026 |
| Key precedents | Shreya Singhal (2015); Anuradha Bhasin (2020) |
“69 BLOCKS, 66 GONE” — Section 69A BLOCKS access and survived Shreya Singhal; Section 66A is GONE (struck down). Pair it with “BHASIN = balance” — Anuradha Bhasin supplies the proportionality test for internet curbs.
Why This Matters for CLAT: Internet-governance disputes sit at the crossroads of fundamental rights, technology law and administrative discretion — three areas CLAT 2027 loves to test together. The Telegram block lets you rehearse the analytical move examiners reward: name the exact statutory power invoked, map it to the constitutional limit in Article 19(2), and apply the judicial test (proportionality) to weigh a legitimate aim (exam integrity) against a sweeping restriction on lawful users. Master this template once and you can crack any free-speech-versus-regulation passage.
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