An Anti-Doping Appeal Panel (ADAP) has ordered the revocation of the provisional suspension imposed by the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) on 20-year-old Wushu athlete Shiv Pratap Chauhan. The ADAP had reserved its order on September 18 last but finally passed the order only on December 29 after the High Court of Delhi directed it to expedite it.
In over-ruling a National Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel (ADDP) order upholding the provisional suspension, the ADAP, chaired by Geetanjali Sharma and including Dr. BG Vageesh and Clarence Lobo as members, held that NADA had failed to produce sufficient evidence to meet the required standard of proof that the athlete had tampered with the sample.
“The (Appeal) Panel did not find any direct evidence indicating that the Athlete was engaged in any form of misconduct during the sample collection process. The Doping Control Officer (DCO) has not documented any irregularities or observations that could lead to a violation of anti-doping rules,” said the ADAP order issued on December 29 last.
Strangely, the pace of the case has been rather sluggish. Within a month of the athlete’s sample being collected on August 10, during the National Junior Championships in Patna, on September 2, 2023, the National Dope Testing Laboratory reported an Atypical Finding with a pH value inconsistent with human urine.
Though there is no provision in the National Anti-Doping Rules 2021 for a suspension to be imposed on an athlete whose sample showed an atypical finding, on May 22, 2025, NADA decided to place Shiv Pratap Chauhan on provisional suspension. On July 3, the ADDP rejected the athlete’s appeal to revoke the suspension.
After hearing a writ filed by the athlete, on December 2, 2025, Justice Sachin Datta kept the provisional suspension in abeyance, and directed the ADAP to expedite the consideration of the appeal within eight weeks. There is no knowing how much more time the ADAP would have taken to pass the order if the Court had not intervened.
The ball as far as the case against the pH value being inconsistent with human urine is now in NADA’s court. If it is unable to go beyond suspicion and establish tampering of the sample, it will have to close the case, leaving the whole thing about the abnormal pH Value of the urine in the realms of mystery.
Photo: Courtesy Shiv Pratap Chauhan Facebook page
