Telegram CEO Pavel Durov has publicly accused Reliance and Meta-owned WhatsApp of corporate sabotage, suggesting they are secretly driving the current lobbying effort to ban his platform in India.

Durov’s explosive allegations tie commercial warfare directly to India’s active, government-mandated Telegram block.

The Allegation: Corporate Lobbying & “BGP Hijacking”

Taking to X (formerly Twitter), Durov expanded the narrative beyond academic paper leaks. He alleged that Reliance is actively disrupting Telegram traffic—not just within India, but internationally:

• The WhatsApp/Meta Connection: Durov noted that Meta holds a minority stake in Reliance’s digital arm (Jio). He explicitly stated, “I wouldn’t be surprised if Reliance/WhatsApp were also behind the recent lobbying effort to ban Telegram in India.”
• The Sabotage Claim: Durov accused Reliance of using a rogue networking technique called Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) hijacking to deliberately misroute and crash Telegram access for millions of users outside India, specifically highlighting impacted users in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
• The Response: While Reliance has not put out a formal corporate press statement, senior telecom industry insiders quickly hit back, calling Durov’s claims “fake news.” The sources pointed out that Durov appears to be technically confused, mistaking subsea cable operator Reliance Communications (RCom)—an entirely separate, bankrupt entity—with Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries/Jio.

Telegram Strikes Back: Taking the Ban to Court

Durov isn’t just venting on social media; Telegram has officially initiated a legal counter-offensive. The company has moved the Delhi High Court, filing an urgent challenge against the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s (MeitY) temporary block.

Represented by advocate Madhav Khosla, Telegram’s legal team argued its case before a vacation bench. The platform’s stance mirrors Durov’s public criticisms:

“This punishes 150M+ ordinary Telegram users in India — not the insiders who leaked the exam materials. And the ban hasn’t stopped anything. The leaks just moved to other apps.” — Pavel Durov

Telegram’s legal petition contends that shutting down an entire multi-million user platform to stop localized cheating syndicates is disproportionate. The company also stated it has already manually scrubbed hundreds of scam channels flagged by Indian intelligence in recent weeks.

Digital rights groups, including the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), have backed the view that using Section 69A of the IT Act to turn off an entire intermediary—and forcing it to rewrite its product by stripping out the message-editing feature—stretches the legal boundary of the law. The Delhi High Court has agreed to an urgent listing to review the government’s blocking order.