The Hindu : Sport : Satish Rai, Anita Kumari doping cases remain unresolved for more than a year

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Satish Rai, Anita Kumari doping cases remain unresolved for more than a year

K. P. Mohan

NEW DELHI: More than a year after weightlifters Satish Rai and Anita Kumari were charged with anti-doping rule violations their cases have been left pending for some reason or the other by the Indian Weightlifting Federation.

Both lifters had tested positive for steroid stanozolol, Rai at the National Games in Guwahati in February last year and Anita at the National championships in Visakhapatnam in December 2006.

Rai’s Guwahati violation, for which he was disqualified by the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) after “due process”, was his second offence, he having tested positive at the Manchester Commonwealth Games in 2002 for the stimulant, strychnine. Rai faced a life ban because of his second offence.

Quandary

That is what has put the Indian federation in a quandary. Last December, it decided at its Executive Committee meeting in Bhubaneswar that a panel would be set up to look into both the cases.

The panel, under the chairmanship of Mr. G.R. Beg, a vice-president of the federation from Jammu and Kashmir, apparently met and heard Rai or his representatives and Anita’s lawyer during the past few months. The exact details of the meetings are not available but the panel did submit its report to the President of the federation, Harbhajan Singh.

What could be the delay then?

“The panel has given its opinion on the cases, but has not made any recommendation about the punishment to be handed out to the lifters,” Mr. Harbhajan Singh told The Hindu on Saturday when contacted in Lucknow. “I have sent the report back to the committee with a few queries and sought a decision as early as possible. I hope to dispose it of within a week,” said Mr. Singh.

Ten months after the IOA stripped Rai of his medals in the last National Games, a decision has been left pending since the Indian federation is unsure of the rules pertaining to two offences in which one (Manchester) attracted only a six-month suspension under the prevailing sanctions in 2002. It approached the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) for clarification last year, but received none, according to officials. Both of the Karnataka lifter’s tests were conducted in WADA-accredited laboratories. The IWF anti-doping rules stipulate that hearing should be completed within three months of the ‘results management process’.

As for Anita Kumari, her petition against the charges brought forward by the Indian federation was dismissed by the Delhi High Court last December following the confirmation of her ‘positive’ through the ‘B’ sample test at the WADA-accredited laboratory in Penang, Malaysia. Her ‘A’ sample was tested in the Delhi laboratory.

Anita also had undergone a suspension for a stimulant violation in 2003, but the drug in question, pseudoephedrine, is no longer a prohibited substance and thus the Andhra lifter should escape life ban and get only a two-year suspension of which she has already served 17 months.

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