India's telecoms department blocked 129 betting sites on two forged high court orders

India's Department of Telecommunications directed the blocking of 129 betting websites this year on the basis of two high court orders that do not exist, Reuters reported on Wednesday. The purported orders, attributed to the Rajasthan and Allahabad high courts, appear in neither court's online registration records. Both courts have now declared them fake.

The order annexed to the September 2 blocking directive carried the Allahabad High Court's logo, its seal and a QR code, and bore the name of a serving judge, Justice Garima Prashad. The QR code led to a webpage displaying nothing but a case number. The document had reached the department on August 22 from a man identifying himself as advocate Kartikey Pandey. The second order, attributed to the Rajasthan High Court, had arrived by email in July, signed by one Aryan Chaudhary, described as an advocate-on-record; an email to that address returned a "recipient not found" notification.

The department acted on both. It issued blocking directions on July 21 and September 2, copies of the purported orders attached, and posted the directives on its website. The Rajasthan High Court's registrar has since said the order "appears to be fraudulent" and does not exist on the court's server. The Allahabad High Court filed a police complaint on November 6, and police documents cited by Reuters record the judge's office confirming that no such order was ever passed. An investigation for alleged forgery and cheating is under way.

A second set of forgeries has surfaced, this time in the government's own name. Delhi Police's Crime Branch registered a first information report on Saturday over fraudulent takedown notices sent to the social media platform X in the telecommunications department's name. The forged notices demanded the blocking of accounts belonging to Internet Freedom Foundation and Software Freedom Law Centre, two digital rights groups. X told the Delhi High Court on Friday that an internal investigation had established the notices were sent by an imposter. The FIR names no suspects; it was registered against unidentified persons under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita provisions on forgery and impersonation of a public servant, along with computer-related offences under the Information Technology Act.

Between the first forged order in July and the police complaint in November, the blocking machinery required no verification beyond the paperwork itself. An email from an advocate whose address later bounced was enough to remove 129 websites from the Indian internet. X, sent forged notices in a ministry's name, investigated and exposed the imposter. The department, sent forged orders in two courts' names, blocked 129 sites.

The Department of Telecommunications did not respond to questions from Reuters. When Scroll checked, only the September directive was still posted — annexed to an order the judge's office confirms was never passed.