THE Madras High Court led Telegram to block and remove impersonating channels PhonePe and redirect payments to fraudsters. The order follows a lawsuit filed by the Walmart-owned company. digital payments platform PhonePe alleging that these channels on the messaging platform were causing financial losses to the company and its users. In response to this, Telegram’s lawyer said that the platform cannot proactively identify and block such impersonations. However, they assured the court that Telegram would block and remove these channels upon receipt of complaints from users and PhonePe. The court accepted this argument and ordered Telegram to promptly respond to any complaint filed by PhonePe regarding channel spoofing.

What the Madras High Court ordered

In a recent order passed by Justice K Kumaresh Babu, he asked PhonePe to notify Telegram of any spoofed content or copyright infringement and provide the URLs of such posts so that Telegram can block them.
The court order said: “Mr. Thriyambak J Kannan, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the first respondents/accused, would submit that it would be difficult for them to block the publication even at the initial stage and would submit that as and when such publications are made and they are brought. to the knowledge of the second defendant, it would be immediately blocked.
2. The learned counsel appearing for the plaintiff/applicant also submits that as and when they are notified, they would immediately inform the first defendant through email and the learned counsel appearing for the first defendant also undertakes to do so as and when gradually. email is received, this post will be immediately deleted/blocked.
3. In view of the fact that the application is filed to grant an interim injunction against the second respondent, the first respondent must also provide the IP address of the URL and channel for which the blocking request has been made. formulated.
4. At the request of the applicant’s counsel, list the case after two weeks.”