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Doping issue: Sports Ministry sets up enquiry panel

NEW DELHI NOV 14. The Union Sports Ministry has woken up at last. Exactly a month after the Sunita Rani doping scandal hit the country, the ministry has decided to institute a "high-level committee'' to inquire into the incident.

This is the third enquiry committee that has been instituted on the Sunita doping case, following the ones formed by the Amateur Athletic Federation of India (AAFI) and the Sports Authority of India (SAI).

The Ministry panel will be headed by its former Secretary, Mr. S. S. Sharma, and will have, among others, Prof. Y. K. Gupta, Department of Pharmacology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) as a member. The other members of the committee are yet to be named.

The panel is expected to go into the circumstances leading up to Sunita Rani testing positive during the Busan Asian Games. It will also go into the role of the AAFI and the SAI among others.

The Sports Ministry, in receipt of a recommendation from the All India Council of Sports (AICS) Chairman, Mr. Vijay Kumar Malhotra, for setting up a judicial enquiry, has gone in for this softer option instead on the argument that the Delhi High Court had already instituted a committee to look into the matter.

That committee, headed by the current Secretary, Sports Ministry, also has the Director-General, SAI, and the Secretary-General, Indian Olympic Association (IOA) as its members.

It is pertinent to point out here that it was during Mr. Sharma's tenure as the Secretary, Sports Ministry, that the foreign `recovery experts', whose role in the present controversy has come into sharp focus, were brought in from the former Soviet Republics. Observers thus feel that Mr. Sharma's appointment now as the head of the enquiry panel would not help matters at all.

It would be ideal if the panel includes a representative of the Medical Council of India and another from the Union Health Ministry since the basic issue relates to banned drugs being brought in or consumed. Another major point in the controversy is the role of the foreign recovery experts. Did they have the necessary approval to practise medicine in India? Did they prescribe medicines brought in from abroad? The foreign expert who accompanied the athletics team to Busan was cleared by the Union Government as `doctor'.

All the foreign `experts' and coaches have since left the country since their tenure ended on October 31. — Our Special Correspondent

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