The Hindu : Sport : Indian delegation puts dope lab official in a spot

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 29, 2006

Sport

Sport - Sports : General

Indian delegation puts dope lab official in a spot

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI : The Indian delegation at the Commonwealth Games apparently put the Scientific Director of the Dope Control Centre (DCC) Sheila Jain in a spot by naming her as the expert it was trying to contact to scrutinise the analytical papers regarding the positive tests returned by weightlifters Tajinder Singh and Edwin Raju.

As the person in charge of testing at the DCC here, Dr. Jain could not have been expected to provide expert opinion in a doping case against the findings of a laboratory accredited by the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA). More so since the Delhi lab is in the process of gaining WADA accreditation.

"By a letter, hand delivered on 25 March 2006, the respondents' representatives indicated that since Saturday was a holiday in Delhi, they had been unable to contact their chosen expert, Dr. Sheila Jain at the Sports Authority of India," the ad hoc panel of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), sitting in Melbourne, stated in its interim order on Sunday.

No contact

"No one has contacted me so far with any request," said Dr. Jain on Tuesday. "I have been on medical leave and even if I had been approached, I would have required clearance from higher authorities," she added.

The CEO of the DCC, S. Krishnan, who is also the Joint Secretary in the Union Sports Ministry expressed surprise that such a move was made by the Indian delegation in Melbourne without realising all the implications.

It was felt that at least the Director-General of SAI, Ratan Watal, who was available in Melbourne, could have advised against the decision to bring in Dr. Jain's name in writing to CAS at a time the Delhi laboratory had entered the preliminary phase of the accreditation procedure.

The WADA Code of Ethics discourages laboratories and their personnel from doing anything that could undermine or be detrimental to the anti-doping programme. Though there is no specific bar on the personnel providing expert advice, except in the case of technique to mask detection, the Code does state: "The laboratory should not provide testing services in defense of an athlete in a doping control adjudication."

Matter of interpretation

It would be a matter of interpretation whether "testing services" could mean expert advice, too, or whether conduct detrimental to the anti-doping programme could also include such advice given in defence of an athlete facing a doping charge.

CAS noted in its interim order that the `respondents' did not take up the CAS offer to identify "potentially available experts".

The Indian side, according to the interim order, had raised various points in its correspondence, including the argument that the lifters were tested in the recent past by both WADA and Indian agencies and had come `negative' and that the substance (stanozolol) had no performance enhancing effect!

The panel observed: "Established precedent(s) suggest that none of these points could avail against the results of a properly conducted test which revealed the presence of a prohibited substance in an athlete's urine."

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