Telegram Row Deepens as Reliance Jio Denies Pavel Durov’s Blocking Claims

Pavel Durov, inventor of the peer-to-peer messaging platform Telegram, accused Reliance Jio of restricting his service. In response, Reliance clarified that it was running its network in accordance with international security and transparency regulations.

While dismissing the claims, Reliance Jio on 17 June posted on X "Recent posts on X have led to speculation regarding Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (AS55836) and a BGP route misconfiguration. We categorically clarify that Jio has not been involved in any such incident. Jio continues to operate its network in accordance with global Internet routing best practices and the highest standards of reliability, security, and transparency."

Claimed Made by Durov

According to Durov's post, Reliance, an Indian telecom operator, was allegedly using BGP hijacking to block Telegram from reaching users outside of India. Simply said, BGP hijacking occurs when an unauthorised party corrupts Internet routing tables maintained by the border gateway protocol in order to legitimately take over groups of IP addresses.

He made a strong statement by posting, "This may be part of a competitive war, as Reliance is partially owned by Meta — the company behind WhatsApp. Network operators are advised to reject unauthorized BGP announcements from Reliance (AS18101) to prevent route hijacks and ensure stable Internet access for their users. Such abuse of global Internet routing is alarming. I wouldn’t be surprised if Reliance/WhatsApp were also behind the recent lobbying effort to ban Telegram in India."

Tug of War Between Telegram and Meity

The app was banned by the Indian authorities until June 22, which prompted Durov to make his statements. A retest of the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET-UG) is set to take place on June 21, and this measure is taken to stop any exam materials related to that test from getting leaked. In response to a request from the National Testing Agency (NTA), the directive was issued on June 16th by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000.

Despite appealing the decision to the Delhi High Court on June 17, Telegram did not receive any temporary respite. Arguments about Telegram's request to remove the ban are scheduled to be heard by the court on 18 June. In addition, further instructions were sent out to limit the ability to edit messages in Telegram until June 30.

According to the NTA, Meity, the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), and the state police forces have been working together to delete Telegram accounts, groups, and bots that were promoting the availability of test papers. After taking down individual channels didn't solve the problem, the NTA contemplated platform-level limitations.