The Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has temporarily restricted access to messaging application Telegram till June 22, a day after the scheduled re-examination of the 2026 undergraduate National Eligibility cum Entrance Test, the National Testing Agency said on Tuesday.

The ministry has also directed the platform under the Information Technology Rules to disable its message-editing feature till June 30. The National Testing Agency alleged that the feature was used “to fabricate after-the-event ‘paper leak’ evidence in respect of national examinations”.

The NEET-UG exam was initially conducted on May 3, but was later cancelled following allegations of a paper leak. The exam is conducted by the National Testing Agency for admission to undergraduate medical courses in India.

The National Testing Agency said the ministry issued the directions to Telegram on its recommendation.

It claimed that the application’s message-editing feature was used in several recent examinations to make fabricated claims of paper leaks.

“…A channel administrator edits an older, innocuous message to insert the actual question paper after the examination has been conducted, and the resulting chat is then circulated as purported ‘evidence’ that the paper was in circulation before the examination,” the agency claimed.

The National Testing Agency said that while it acknowledged that the restriction on Telegram would hamper the work of those who use the application for legitimate purposes, the access restrictions were confined to the period ending on June 22.

More than 22 lakh candidates had appeared for the May 3 test. However, the exam was cancelled after the Rajasthan Special Operations Group began investigating allegations that a “guess paper” circulated before the examination contained questions closely matching the actual paper.

The “guess paper” contained around 410 questions, of which about 120 matched the questions asked in the chemistry section, according to the Rajasthan Police.

The CBI filed a first information report in the matter based on a complaint by the Union education ministry. It has invoked charges under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to criminal conspiracy, cheating and criminal breach of trust, the Prevention of Corruption Act and the 2024 Public Examinations Prevention of Unfair Means Act.

The 2024 examination was also hit by allegations of paper leaks and irregular grace marks, leading to nationwide protests.

Written by Neerad Pandharipande. Edited by Sara Varghese.