New Delhi: The government on Thursday told the Delhi High Court that Telegram has become the “new dark web” which is increasingly being used by criminals, cyber fraudsters, extremist groups and other threat actors to evade law enforcement.
The observations were made in an affidavit filed before the Delhi HC after Telegram challenged the government’s decision to temporarily block the platform’s operations in India ahead of Sunday’s NEET-UG 2026 re-examination.
Defending its decision, the government alleged that there was widespread misuse of Telegram for various illegal activities like circulation of leaked exam papers such as NEET, terrorism, cybercrime, financial fraud, child sexual exploitation material, drug trafficking and financial crimes.
“Telegram has become the new dark web, linking threat actors. Criminals have rapidly adopted Telegram to post links on channels that connect to dark web forums through deep web links, making it hard for authorities to track and attribute criminals,” the Centre said in its submission to the court.
The Centre said users can conceal identifiers such as phone numbers and Telegram IDs through privacy settings, making it difficult for investigators to establish the real identities behind accounts.
“It has been observed that Telegram is being exploited for illegal activities including drug trafficking, cybercrime, extremism, terrorism, child exploitation, and cyber scams and frauds, primarily due to privacy features,” the affidavit said.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who appeared for the Centre, told the high court that inputs from the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), a unit under the Ministry of Home Affairs, repeatedly pointed to structural features that make it difficult to curb misuse on the platform.
Mehta submitted that Telegram allows a single account holder to create up to 40 bots, unlike platforms like WhatsApp where bot creation is restricted.
“The scale at which it can multiply is only available on Telegram,” Mehta said.
Action against individual bots often provides temporary relief because similar accounts can quickly reappear under different names and identifiers, Mehta added.
“They say we are doing it manually. MHA has a unit called I4C, they give periodical reports. All lead to a conclusion that their architecture is such that they are unable to do what is required in such circumstances,” Mehta told the court.
A vacation bench of Justice Tejas Karia reserved its judgment on Telegram’s plea against the decision to restrict its access before the NEET-UG retest.
