Telegram Ban Ahead of NEET-UG Retest Is 'Ridiculous'; Move Aimed at Covering Up NTA's Incompetence: Sarthak Siddhant

New Delhi: The Central government's decision to temporarily block Telegram ahead of the NEET-UG re-examination is outright foolishness and nothing more than an attempt to conceal the National Testing Agency's failures, according to Sarthak Siddhant — the Class 12 student from Ranchi who gained national attention after exposing irregularities in CBSE's on-screen marking system and tender documents through digital analysis, and presenting his findings before the Parliamentary Committee on Education.

Sarthak's remarks came in the wake of NTA welcoming the Centre's decision to impose a temporary ban on Telegram ahead of the June 21 NEET-UG re-examination.

"Blocking Telegram across the entire country because of NTA's incompetence is not the right approach at all. This is a platform used by lakhs of teachers and other professionals for educational purposes and resource sharing. A large section of users also depends on it for secure communication, media consumption, and for building automated bots using the Telegram API for businesses and technical projects. The ban will affect all of them severely," Sarthak said.

The original NEET examination held last May was cancelled after question papers were found to have been leaked with the help of insiders within the examination system, triggering widespread protests across the country. Several students, under extreme mental distress following the cancellation, died by suicide.

The Union Ministry of Information Technology has imposed the temporary Telegram ban until June 22. NTA has also restricted the message editing feature on the platform until June 30, citing concerns that it could be misused to fabricate false evidence after the examination.

The Centre's decision to block the app rather than address the systemic failures in examination management has drawn sharp criticism and mockery on social media, with many questioning whether banning a platform constitutes any kind of lasting solution to examination malpractice.