Doping charge: Karnataka High Court sets aside four-year ban imposed on national level basketball player Shashank Rai

Terming the actions of anti-doping agencies “a classic illustration of breach of sample integrity” and absence of fair hearing, the High Court of Karnataka set aside the four-year ban imposed on State’s national-level basketball player Shashank J. Rai in 2022 after he tested positive of a prohibited drug in a dope test.

Terming the actions of anti-doping agencies “a classic illustration of breach of sample integrity” and absence of fair hearing, the High Court of Karnataka set aside the four-year ban imposed on State’s national-level basketball player Shashank J. Rai in 2022 after he tested positive of a prohibited drug in a dope test.

Justice M. Nagaprasanna passed the order recently while allowing a petition filed by Mr. Rai, a national-level basketball player, who is a Deputy Range Forest Officer in the State.

Mr. Rai was banned from basketball for four years in October, 2022, and the Anti-Doping Appellate Authority (ADAA) in April, 2024, rejected his appeal against the ban.

The court said that the agencies, including ADAA had failed to apply their mind in the manner known to law on the claim of the player, who presented his case with vital material rooted in plausible biochemical explanation.

The player claimed that he is a regular pork eater, and exogenous traces of 19-Norandrosterone (19-NA) substance detected in his urine were consistent with the ingestion of meat from un-castrated male pigs and not attributable to anabolic steroid abuse, the court said, while pointing out that ADAA had “neither called for further investigation nor explained its rejection of the material produced by the player” in support of his claim.

The court said that it is mindful that anti-doping adjudication operates under a regime of strict liability but that “does not mean that strictness in liability does not mandate callousness in process”.

“The foundational requirements of principles of natural justice cannot be sacrificed projecting administrative expediency,” the court said, while pointing out that results of the initial dope test were not disclosed to the player either in the notice of charge or in the order of ban, but was disclosed only before the ADAA. This was in violation of Section 22(8) of the Act, which mandates fair hearing and reasoning, the court said.