This looks like an unending soap opera. The 11 methylhexaneamine cases, started prior to the Commonwealth Games here, have already set some Indian records. They seem poised to set new world standards in anti-doping adjudication.
Seventeen months and one week after the cases first came up before the National Anti-Doping Disciplinary panel (NADDP), there was yet another postponement of the hearing on Wednesday. Just hours before the panel meet and the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) lawyers walked into the NADA premises, the defence counsel, R.K. Anand, informed that he was not in a position to come.
Anand had sought another postponement on Tuesday on the plea that swimmers Amar Muralidharan and Jyotsana Pansare were unable to come.
The panel chairman, Dinesh Dayal, rejected that plea and informed the lawyer that there was no necessity for the athletes to come. Still, there could be no stopping yet another postponement. The paradox will be complete if the defence eventually seeks a suspension — if there is any — from the sample collection date on the argument that there were “delays not attributable to the athletes.”
In a set of cases where the defence lawyer has spent days questioning the qualification of the scientists at the National Dope Testing Laboratory (NDTL) to figuring out the lay-out of the laboratory or seeking information about where the key to a particular cupboard used to be kept, further delay on Wednesday looked inevitable.
“This can now go on well past the (London) Olympics,” said an official on Wednesday, obliquely referring to the fact the athletes were not under provisional suspension and had been competing in championships, including international events.
More delay likely
More delay looks likely as the NDTL has informed that its Scientific Director, Alka Beotra, would not be available on March 14 and 16, the next dates fixed for the hearing. The defence apparently had not been satisfied with certain explanations given by the NDTL since July last year.
A dozen sportspersons had tested positive for methylhexaneamine (MHA) before the Commonwealth Games. Out of that, weightlifter Sanamacha Chanu was given an eight-year suspension since hers happened to be the second offence.
The others — wrestlers Rajeev Tomar, Mausam Khatri, Suman, Rahul Mann, Joginder and Gursharanpreet Kaur, athletes Saurabh Vij and Akash Antil, and swimmers Muralidharan, Richa Mishra and Pansare — could be worried as well as pleased by looking at recent decisions in MHA cases in India.
Apart from the Chanu case, there have been two-year suspensions for six sportspersons for MHA offences since the above group tested positive, three cases had the suspensions reduced from two to one year on appeal, and in one case a three-month suspension given by the disciplinary panel was increased to one year on appeal.
WADA can step in
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) can step in and take the unresolved cases to the Court of Arbitration for Sport if it invokes Article 13.3 (failure to render a timely decision by an anti-doping organisation) of the Code saying that this has gone on beyond any reasonable deadline.
Anti-doping cases are supposed to be decided within three months as per rules. The Sukanya Mishra case took around 14 months, the Thavaraj case, decided on Wednesday, took around 23 months only because the athlete was difficult to trace.
