NEW DELHI: It was on August 23 that Union Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju had with much certainty asserted India would file an appeal before the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland against the decision of the World Anti-Doping Agency to suspend the accreditation of National Dope Testing Laboratory.
This followed WADA’s decision on August 20 to suspend NDTL’s accreditation for six months over its deficient testing procedure protocols.
While issuing its suspension order, WADA had stated: “This suspension has been imposed due to non-conformities with the International Standard for Laboratories (ISL) as identified during a WADA site visit.”
Reacting to the adverse development, Sports Secretary Radhey Shyam Julaniya had alleged then that a “big business interest” was the reason behind WADA’s move.
“There is a huge business interest behind this decision because the cost of testing in our laboratory is much cheaper than anywhere in the world. Many East African countries have approached us to test their samples and it seems it didn’t go down well with WADA,” he had alleged to PTI.
Cut to the present and better sense has prevailed. Julaniya told Times of India on Monday that the government has decided NOT to appeal and has instead taken the more practical (and proper we might add) approach of directly addressing the problem at hand and rectifying it rather than resorting to conspiracy theories. “We have given a proper reply to whatever issues WADA had pointed out, the Sports Secretary told TOI.
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