Shortly after the government announced the restriction on Tuesday, VPN downloads in the country skyrocketed. App-intelligence firm Appfigures, which provided the data exclusively to TechCrunch, noted that it marked the highest daily VPN downloads in India since early 2025. Downloads for leading VPN applications surged 49% in just one day, increasing from a recent average of approximately 139,000 to 208,000.
The individual surges were even more pronounced.
Proton VPN saw a 113% increase in downloads on Apple’s App Store, while Turbo VPN rose by 85%. On Google Play, Proton’s downloads grew by 64% and Turbo VPN by 35%. NordVPN experienced a 41% increase on the App Store, and ExpressVPN saw a 31% boost on Google Play. This influx quickly altered the rankings, with Proton VPN jumping from 18th to fifth place in Apple’s Utilities category between June 16 and 18, and rising from eighth to second place in Google Play’s Tools section.
The early usage statistics indicate the practical difficulties in enforcing a platform-wide ban. Data from Sensor Tower shows that Telegram’s daily active users in India actually grew by 17% on the day the ban was enforced, marking the app’s largest single-day leap in the country since a major Meta outage in 2021. Additionally, Cloudflare observed a significant increase in DNS requests for Telegram domains, indicating users frequently trying to access the blocked service rather than successfully connecting.
India’s Section 69A blocking framework depends on internet service providers to enforce the order, allowing access to be restored via a VPN. This dynamic is a well-known aspect of online restrictions globally, explaining why such bans can be quickly instituted yet may take time to fully impact users.
The disruption also drove users to alternative messaging platforms. According to Appfigures, Signal downloads soared by 72% on the App Store and by 322% on Google Play, while Viber increased by 216%. The Telegram-associated app iMe saw an extraordinary surge, leaping from a daily average of around 827 downloads on Google Play to nearly 50,900 on June 16.
The VPN service providers themselves confirmed this wave of activity. Proton reported that daily sign-ups from India were 120% higher than the baseline on Wednesday, following a spike of 150% in hourly registrations on Tuesday evening. Windscribe, based in Canada, informed TechCrunch that its sign-ups in India peaked at roughly 100% above normal, with first-time iOS downloads increasing by about 89%.
A more significant question now lies with the Delhi High Court, which is set to announce its ruling.
The restriction was enacted under Section 69A of the IT Act and is valid until June 22, with Telegram also instructed to disable its message-editing feature until June 30, after the National Testing Agency highlighted channels disseminating counterfeit papers ahead of the NEET-UG re-examination, which is set to be taken by over 22 lakh candidates.
The government has defended the action as a temporary, event-driven measure, with the Solicitor General asserting it has a “logical nexus” to safeguarding the integrity of the re-test, a critical national exam afflicted by allegations of paper leaks.
Telegram has contested the order as excessive, arguing that authorities could have blocked specific channels or content instead of the entire platform, stating it had already removed the channels identified by the government. It told the court that more than 150 million Indian users, including businesses, educators, and coaching institutes, rely on its service.
The bench, led by Justice Tejas Karia questioned how the rights of 150 million users could be restricted because another group of citizens was taking an exam, while also considering the seriousness of the exam-fraud issues raised by the Centre.
For India’s digital economy, the implications extend beyond one app and a single examination. The court’s decision will set a precedent regarding the reach of the State’s emergency blocking powers and how the proportionality test applies in cases of content-level abuse on platforms with extensive legitimate user bases—a matter of increasing importance to messaging, fintech, and creator businesses that increasingly utilize these services.
(Edited by : Tenzin Norzom)
First Published: Jun 19, 2026 10:14 AM IST
