JOIN USThe National Anti-Doping Disciplinary panel on Friday reserved the order on the long-winding Methylhexaneamine (MHA) cases involving 11 athletes.
The case had stretched to two years and it took a five-hour hearing this day before the panel headed by retired judge Dinesh Dayal finally wrapped it up, leaving some suspense about when the final order would be delivered.
The National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) lawyer Rahul Kumar who began the proceedings, pointed out how the athletes had forged a collective defence after eight athletes out of 11 gave variant accounts when notified about their ‘A’ sample tests.
Only Akash Antil, Gursharanpreet Kaur and Saurabh Vij filed no initial response explaining how the banned substance entered their bodies.
Reading out their statements later, Kumar pointed out that all 11 of them read identical.
He said it was done as an “after thought” and questioned how all the 11 athletes could have a similar defense.
He pointed out that the samples were collected at three different venues and on different dates and therefore there should be some differences in these cases. He argued that the cases should be taken up separately instead of being disposed of in a bunch.
He also challenged swimmer Richa Mishra’s contention over faulty sample collection, arguing why she had not objected to it at the time of dope control in Jaipur and why she had not mentioned it at the time of her initial response.
He said she had in her written explanation to NADA insisted on her innocence and listed the substances which led her testing positive.
Richa, he said, had signed her dope control form without raising objections, but later in her statement, she challenged the procedure. Kumar said nowhere it was implied that she signed her document under pressure.
The defence, in the absence of its lawyer R K Anand, argued through swimmer Amar Muralidharan’s father , Gopal-aswamy Muralidharan, and stuck to their line of procedural lapses in the documentation packages and analytical reports.
The mix up between documentation packages of Amar Muralidharan and Jyotsana Pansare was their strongest counter-argument.
The National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) had admitted to the lapse and reasoned that the laboratory probably made some errors under the pressure of making 11 documentation packages within a fortnight. The panel , however, was not impressed and reprimanded NADA for its “casual approach”.
Swimmers Richa, Amar and Jyotsna, wrestlers Rajeev Tomar, Rahul Mann, Sumeet, Joginder, Mausam Khatri and Gursharanpreet, and athletes Saurabh Vij and Akash were athletes facing the trial for the use of MHA before the Commonwealth Games.