JOIN USPanel adjourns dope hearing
The hearing at the AFI headquarters here was adjourned for July 20 as the National Dope Testing Laboratory could not provide on time the dope test related documents to the federation panel led by its Medical Committee chief Arun Mendiratta.
Mandeep and Jauna did not attend the hearing though AFI officials initially said that they would come.
The AFI and NADA were in a tussle on who should conduct the disciplinary proceedings of the two athletes who had tested positive in the tests conducted by both IAAF and NADA as there is a case of jurisdictional overlapping. The IAAF had agreed to transfer the hearing process to NADA but wanted it to follow their rules. NADA, in turn, sought the World Anti-Doping Agency’s advice.
“Mandeep and Jauna were represented by their lawyers. The AFI panel collected the wakalatnama (power of attorney) from the lawyers of the athletes. The hearing has been adjourned for July 20 at 5:30 pm as the penal could not get the dope test related documents from the NDTL,” AFI Director M L Dogra said.
“The athletes wanted to examine the documents of their ‘A’ and ‘B’ sample tests and the chain of custody of these samples. But at 3:30 pm we received a telephonic intimation from Shiela Jain, Principal Director of NDTL, that due to some technical problems the documents will not be able to be provided to the AFI.
“We are hoping that we will get these documents by July 18 and these will be handed to the athletes,” Dogra said.
The two athletes were represented by Delhi High Court lawyers, Rajat Bhardwaj and Sandeep Khatri.
The other three members of the AFI panel are Dr Girish Tyagi, Dr Brijesh Kaushal and Capt (Dr) N R Tuli.
NADA Director General Rahul Bhatnagar told PTI that it would have been better had the AFI put on hold the hearing till the WADA gave a clarification. “We are yet to get the clarification from the WADA on the jurisdictional overlapping. We had requested the AFI to put on hold the disciplinary hearing on Mandeep and Jauna. In any case the two athletes will have to appear before the NADA panel under the WADA Rules,” he said.
Dogra refused to go into the jurisdictional issue.
“We have to follow the IAAF Rules. I don’t want to comment on the issue before the July 20 hearing,” he said.