The inscrutable decision
Everything was moving in the right direction for the star grappler who had bright prospects of a medal but the unfortunate events taking place a day before has overturned the momentary gaiety of a billion Indians as Narsingh has been handed a four-year ban by the “Court for Arbitration of Sport” for an involuntary doping allegation. Though it was quite expected of the WADA to go on an appeal against the “NADA Disciplinary Panel” decision, the horrendous arbitral award from the “Ad Hoc CAS Appeals Arbitration Panel” setting aside the previous award of the NADA panel was never on the minds of the right thinking Indians.
Just a day before the commencement of Narsingh’s campaign for a probable gold medal, CAS has dealt such a severe blow on the wrestler that it remains to be seen that if Narsingh can ever feature again on the wrestling mat considering the large pool of youth brigade available at disposal for Indian wrestling. Following the general trend and procedure, CAS is yet to publish the full arbitral award but the media release has more or less ended the dream of Narsingh and his loyal fans.
CAS in most probability has rendered this decision in the light of Rule 10.2.1 under the WADA Code, 2015 after taking into consideration “The List of Prohibited Substances”, “Circumstantial Evidence”, “Expert Opinions” and “Witness Accounts” thereby rejecting the plea of “Elimination of Ineligibility” under Rule 10.5.1.2 put up by the counsel of Narsingh.
A lot of doubts still remain over the reasonability of the decision as the time which is taken by the panel to decide such a complex case is way less than the standard time period taken by the CAS court in proceedings of such nature.
According to the CAS statute, the aggrieved has a remedy to appeal against the decision of Anti-Doping Division under Article 21 in the original CAS seat at Lausanne, Switzerland within 21 days of the issuance of Arbitral Award but as time is short for Narsingh there is no hope left for the revival of his Rio participation.
The structure of the CAS is equivalent to a Swiss Arbitration Organisation and hence it has to surrender before the supreme authority of the “Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland” who takes the final decision on the Appeals against the CAS arbitral award” which means that Narsingh has two remedies left as of now to contest against the four-year ban levied against him.
Even though this process of the remedial proceedings looks quite captivating on paper but in realistic circumstances, overruling takes place only on the grounds of lack of jurisdiction, violation of elementary procedural rules (e.g. violation of the right to a fair hearing) or incompatibility with public policy and only once an overruling has taken place on the merits of the case.
The chances for restitution look slender for Narsingh but the harm has been already done with India missing on a real medal prospect in Rio. Although the ineligibility period would end before the beginning of the “Tokyo Olympics” but a comeback looks a distant dream for Narsingh who has a doubtful future ahead.
The Need of the Hour
The question that remains to be answered is not whether Narsingh’s prosecution by the CAS is justifiable or not , it is about whether the Indian sports, its aficionados and the stakeholders are on a downward spiral because the situation prevailing as of now proves the same.
If it was not enough for Indian sports to face a resource crunch and international backlash because of its policy framework, we are now on a journey where we are sharing more loyalty towards our camps based on the regional, caste and language barriers rather than collaborating to form a stronger sporting community.
The Narsingh Yadav issue is an eye-opener to show the nation that our sports system is at an all-time low, where people are ready to minimise the expansion and development of the sports in the country so as to fulfil their own hunger for revenge.
The media has pointed out fingers on the Sushil Kumar entourage even though there is no substantial proof to such uncanny allegations but one thing which must be understood irrespective of all the conspiracy theories that we can’t demand or expect medals from our athletes until and unless we can manage to provide them access to safe environment and financial resources.
Until then, we must try, try to make a change at least in the mindset.
