Young Kerala athlete makes futile appeal against four-year anti-doping ban

You have to feel for athletes who test positive for banned substances but are convinced by people around them that they can convince adjudicating panels to pass favourable orders. You have to feel more for those who engage lawyers believing they can present their cases not only forcefully but can work magic without a shred of evidence.

The case of 20-year-old Vellappan Neha (known as Neha V) is one such. A part of the Kerala women’s 4x100m relay team which finished second in the 2023 National Games in Goa, her urine sample tested positive for Stanozolol. A National Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel (ADDP) heard her case on April 4, 2024, and handed a four-year ban on May 26.

For some reason, Neha preferred to go an appeal before a National Anti-Doping Appeal Panel (ADAP). Under the chairmanship of Abhinav Mukjerji, and including Dr. Vivek Singh and Prashanti Singh, the ADAP found no reason to modify, let alone over-rule, the ADDP order. In its own order, the ADAP revealed the flimsy argument that was put up.

The athlete’s lawyers argued that she came from a humble background (in Palakkad) and took some medicines on the suggestion of her friends as well a registered medical practitioner after she apparently had to deal with a painful knee. However, the ADAP found that none of the medicines in the prescription could have led to Stanozolol being present in her sample.

“During the hearing, a specific query was put to the counsel for the athlete Mr. Vardan Kapoor to point out from the prescription the medicines which may have resulted in Adverse Analytical Finding. Mr. Vardan Kapoor was unable to do so,” the ADAP order states, indicating that the appeal was lodged without even the faintest hope of obtaining a reversal of the ADDP order.

This comment makes it clear that the athlete and her lawyers approached the ADAP without even verifying whether the medication prescribed by the doctor could have been the cause of her sample testing positive for Stanozolol. Without of any other argument (as seen in the ADAP order), the athlete’s lawyers prayed for a lenient view.

The belief of athletes that prescriptions are good to help them escape sanctions gets amplified when you consider how Arun AB, who finished first in the National Games men’s Triple Jump competition, claimed that the Mephentermine in his sample was the result of treatment of fever, body ache and weakness. 

The Services athlete claimed through his lawyer Vidushpat Singhania that he had visited a hospital in Kaniyapuram on the outskirts of Kerala capital Thiruvananthapuram and was administered medicine with the banned substance. However, the ADDP adjudicating his case held that the entire blame cannot be laid at the doctor’s doorstep.

An ADDP comprising Sunny Choudhary (Chairman), Dr. DS Arya and Archana Shinde, said the prescription did not show the clinical and diagnosis notes mentioning the medical condition of the athlete. The panel also held there was no evidence of a medical emergency and that Mephentine (injection) was not appropriate line of treatment. 

Clearly, any anti-doping education that athletes are subject to must make it evident to them that producing medical prescriptions alone is never going to be enough defence of potential anti-doping rule violations. More so if the prescriptions are not justified by the line of treatment indicated by clinical diagnosis.

Of course, they would be emboldened by tales of how some of their predecessors may have gotten away with no, or light, punishment by producing prescriptions. This may have been possible when India was not under the World Anti-Doping Agency microscope but not any longer.

There is at least one known instance of an athlete coming up with a doctor’s prescription in the hope of convincing an adjudication panel to view his rule violation leniently. In 2017, an ADAP chaired by Justice GC Bharuka fined wrestler Yogesh Rs 10,000 for presenting a forged prescription when seeking to explain the presence of a banned diuretic in his sample.

Yogesh claimed that he had been admitted in the Bara Hindu Rao Hospital after he fell unconscious because of hypertension and was given a Lasix injection. He produced a prescription signed by a Dr. Anshu Garg. The hospital Chief Medical Officer confirmed to NADA that no Senior Resident (Medicine) by that had ever worked in the hospital.