Shuttler Garaga cleared of doping charges

NEW DELHI: Men’s doubles shuttler Krishna Prasad Garaga, who was part of the country’s Thomas Cup gold-winning campaign in 2022, will be donning the India jersey again after the National Anti-Doping Agency’s (NADA) appeal panel lifted his four-year ban period with immediate effect after exonerating him of drugrelated charges.The 25-year-old from Andhra Pradesh’s Kakinada was allowed to return to the competition arena effective Jan 18, 2026, following the anti-doping appeal panel’s decision to set aside his period of ineligibility, which was imposed on Nov 6, 2024. Garaga, incidentally, was the men’s doubles champion at the 2019 South Asian Games.

Garaga’s lawyers argued that Nada failed to comply with mandatory procedural safeguards, which said that under Wada’s technical rules, an adverse analytical finding (AAF) for HCG in a male athlete must trigger a comprehensive clinical investigation to rule out pathological causes.

The lawyers contended that “exogenous administration is pharmacokinetically impossible since injected HCG would have cleared the system within days”.Nada’s legal team argued that under the principle of strict liability, the burden of proof shifts to the athlete. However, the appeal panel ruled in its order: “The panel finds that the scientific and biochemical evidence on record does not establish, to the requisite standard of comfortable satisfaction, that the HCG detected in the athlete’s sample originated from exogenous administration.

Accordingly, the athlete is exonerated.

”Nada officers called for cross-examinationIn another development, a separate appeal panel has ordered the cross-examination of Nada’s dope control officer Pawan Kumar and chaperones Kirti and Mukul in Olympic medallist wrestler Bajrang Punia’s case.The case involved Punia’s refusal to give his urine sample during the national selection trials on March 10, 2024, following disputes over testing protocols.He was banned for four years by Nada’s disciplinary panel on Nov 26, 2024.