India’s discovery that 129 website-blocking directions were based on forged High Court orders is not only a cybercrime story. It is a failure in the administrative chain through which the state restricts access to online services, with implications for internet governance, institutional accountability and the functioning of digital infrastructure.
The Department of Telecommunications issued two blocking directions this year after receiving what appeared to be court orders from the Rajasthan High Court and the Allahabad High Court. The directions affected websites featuring gambling, which is illegal under Indian law. Reuters found that the court documents were fake, and both courts subsequently provided evidence supporting that conclusion.
The Rajasthan High Court registrar told Reuters that the order bearing the court’s name “appears to be fraudulent” and did not exist on the court’s online server. In Uttar Pradesh, the Allahabad High Court found that its order was fake and filed a police complaint on November 6. Police case documents showed that an investigation against unknown persons had begun over alleged forgery and cheating.
A senior state cybercrime official, Ghanshyam Yadav, told Reuters that the Allahabad order was not genuine. No arrests had been made at the time of the report. The Department of Telecommunications did not respond to Reuters’ questions about the two directions.
The immediate problem is clear: documents designed to look like judicial orders entered an official process and were treated as sufficient grounds to instruct internet service providers to block websites. The deeper issue is that a legal and technical system built to act quickly can become vulnerable when the authenticity of the initiating document is not independently established.
## The administrative chain behind a block
The two cases described by Reuters show how a forged document could move through multiple stages of government action. On July 19, an email sent to the telecoms department at 8:59 p.m. contained what appeared to be a Rajasthan court order. It was signed by “Aryan Chaudhary”, described as an advocate-on-record. A Reuters query to the email address attributed to Chaudhary bounced back with a “Recipient not found” message.
The order instructed that its directions be carried out within 24 hours and referred to a provision of Indian information-technology law that permits takedowns in the interest of national security. Two days later, the government directed internet service providers to remove 34 betting websites listed in the purported order.
The second case followed a similar path but included additional signals of apparent authenticity. The forged Allahabad High Court order carried the court’s logo and seal and included a QR code, a feature that would ordinarily help users verify a document. Instead, Reuters found that the code led to a random webpage displaying a one-line case number: “Writ — A 30480/2026”.
That case number was also cited by a person identifying himself as advocate Kartikey Pandey, who sent the document to Indian officials on August 22. The published correspondence showed exchanges among officials, including a request for an “action taken report”. On September 2, an official instructed internet service providers to take “immediate necessary action” to block access to 95 betting websites.
Together, the two directions covered 129 websites. The documents remained on the ministry’s website as of the time of Reuters’ reporting, even after the courts had identified the orders as fraudulent or apparently fraudulent.
## Speed versus verification
The episode exposes a basic tension in digital administration. Website-blocking directions are operational orders: once issued, they can be transmitted to internet providers and implemented across networks. The administrative value of such a system lies partly in its speed, especially when authorities claim that content threatens public order, national security or other legally recognised interests.
But speed increases the importance of verification before an order enters the system. A genuine court order is not authenticated merely because it carries a seal, logo, signature, case number or QR code. Those features can be reproduced. In this case, the apparent presence of several such markers did not prevent forged documents from being treated as official judicial directions.
The supplied reporting does not establish how the documents were created, who created them or whether artificial intelligence was used. It also does not establish whether the telecoms department had a formal verification protocol that was bypassed, or whether the process relied primarily on the documents and email communications presented to officials. Those unanswered questions are central to understanding where the control failure occurred.
The institutional chain has at least three distinct points of responsibility: the person or group that created and circulated the forged orders; the courts whose authority and identity were misused; and the government mechanism that converted the documents into blocking instructions. Internet service providers appear at the end of that chain, receiving directions to restrict access. The report does not indicate whether providers had an independent role in checking the legal basis of those instructions.
This division matters because a takedown system can fail even when each institution assumes that another has completed the necessary check. A court may maintain an online record, a ministry may receive an emailed order, and a service provider may follow a government instruction. If there is no mandatory cross-check between those stages, the appearance of authenticity can substitute for legal authentication.
## A wider problem for digital governance
The cases sit within a broader concern about the use of fabricated legal material in official and judicial settings. Reuters reported that India’s Supreme Court in July set aside tribunal orders that relied on non-existent judgments. The report also noted that a United States judge had recently disqualified lawyers over fabricated legal citations. These incidents are not identical to forged court orders used to trigger website blocks, but they point to a shared vulnerability: legal authority can be undermined when false documents or references pass through institutions that are expected to validate them.
The issue is particularly consequential in India because online takedown powers have become an important part of the state’s approach to content and platform regulation. The government has faced criticism over actions against dissenting online posts and websites, while maintaining that removals are ordered in the public interest and to protect law and order. In such an environment, the authenticity of every legal basis is not a technical detail. It is part of the legitimacy of the entire system.
The Reuters report also referred to a separate incident involving X, which told an Indian court that police directives sent to two free-speech groups warning of account removals had been found to be fake. That episode, like the forged High Court orders, suggests that organisations operating in India may face difficulty distinguishing a genuine official instruction from a document that has been designed to resemble one.
For citizens and businesses, the consequence is not limited to whether a particular betting website remains accessible. A website block can remove a service from users, affect a company’s online presence and create uncertainty about the authority behind the decision. If an order is later shown to be forged, the damage may already have occurred even if access is restored. The report does not say whether the 129 websites were unblocked or whether the government revised its directions after the courts’ findings.
## The missing layer of accountability
The most important unanswered question is not only how a fake document reached officials, but how the system will correct the record once the fraud is identified. The Allahabad High Court’s police complaint creates a formal investigative route, while the Rajasthan registrar’s response establishes that the purported order was not present in the court’s online records. The telecoms department’s lack of response leaves the administrative consequences unclear.
A robust takedown mechanism requires more than the legal power to block access. It also requires an auditable chain showing who submitted the request, which authority verified it, what evidence was checked, when the direction was issued, which providers received it and what happens when the underlying document is challenged. The supplied material does not show whether such a complete audit trail exists.
This gap is significant because the power to restrict online access is exercised through administrative systems that are often invisible to ordinary users. People may encounter a blocked website without knowing which authority ordered the action, what legal document supported it or whether that document was independently verified. Transparency therefore becomes part of operational reliability, not merely a communications preference.
The forged orders also demonstrate why visual authenticity is a weak safeguard. Court seals, national emblems, logos, signatures and QR codes can make a document look official while providing little assurance that it originated from the court named on it. The decisive check is whether the order can be matched to an authoritative court record and confirmed through a recognised institutional channel.
The evidence currently confirms that two forged orders were used in government website-blocking directions affecting 129 betting websites, that the Rajasthan and Allahabad courts rejected the authenticity of the documents, and that a police investigation was initiated in Uttar Pradesh. It does not yet identify the perpetrators, explain the full verification process inside the telecoms department or establish the final status of the blocked websites. Those are the developments that will determine whether this remains an isolated forgery case or exposes a wider weakness in India’s online takedown infrastructure.
