Narsingh Yadav doping saga continues: NADA postpones verdict

A day after Narsingh Yadav's dope scandal hearing got over, there was no clarity today over when the NADA's Anti-Doping Disciplinary Penal will announce its final verdict, which will decide the wrestler's Rio Olympics fate. After the conclusion of the two-day hearing on Narsingh's dope positive case yesterday, the NADA counsel had said that the verdict would come either tomorrow or on August 1.

But there is still no clarity on whether the verdict will come tomorrow or on Monday. When contacted,the counsels of both NADA and Narsingh said they have not been told when the panel would give its final decision. Wrestling Federation of India is also clueless when the verdict will come." We have not been told when the verdict will come. It maybe tomorrow or Monday but we don't know when," a Wrestling Federation of Indian source said.

"There is a 50-50 chance that he might be let off with a warning or may be handed a ban by the NADA disciplinary panel," the source said. As per the revised NADA Code of 2015, the maximum sanction for a first-time offence is four years. Narsingh's lawyers had presented their case on Wednesday, arguing that there was a conspiracy against the grappler while the NADA's legal team gave its arguments against the sabotage theory before the disciplinary panel yesterday.

"The argument by NADA was that he is not eligible for remission which he has been asking. Narsingh did not produce the relevant circumstantial evidence that there could have been sabotage as had been claimed by them," NADA's lawyer Gaurang Kanth told reporters at the end of the hearing yesterday. "They filed an affidavit that his drinks or water was spiked but they did not produce the evidence to prove it to satisfy NADA and WADA," he argued.

The wrestler, who has alleged the involvement of fellow grapplers in the conspiracy, has already been replaced by Parveen Rana in the Olympic bound squad but will be reinstated if he gets a favourable verdict from NADA. NADA's lawyer, however, said that Narsingh's claims of conspiracy are not backed by sufficient proof. "We argued that the requirements of due diligence andcare which was needed to escape from punishment was not provided as to satisfy the WADA Code. So we said he should be given punishment as appropriate this panel thinks fit," Kanth had said.