The Delhi High Court Friday asked CBI to complete within a month its investigation into wrestler Narsingh Yadav's 2016 complaint alleging that his food was spiked leading to a ban on him for four years from the sport on doping charge.
He cannot be left remediless, the court observed and said the shelf life of an athlete is very short.
It also noted the CBI's submission that Yadav was one of the best wrestlers India has in the men's freestyle 74 kg category.
Justice Najmi Waziri, perused the status report filed by CBI in a sealed cover, and noted that the central government was in the process of obtaining statements of members of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) panel, based abroad, which had taken the final decision to slap the four-year ban on Yadav.
The court asked CBI to complete within a month the probe into Yadav's complaint and granted time to the agency which submitted that its investigation was almost complete.
It listed the matter for further hearing on March 6.
During the hearing, CBI counsel said they have full sympathies with him and he was one of the best wrestlers the country has and that they also wanted to conclude the probe as soon as possible.
The CBI counsel said the agency was helping the wrestler and they have sent various reminders through diplomatic channels for permission to question the members of the CAS panel and the scientists involved in the decision making process who were foreign nationals.
To this, the court asked the agency as to what help it has done to Yadav for the last two years and said "you (CBI) have to do something more than just requesting them. We have diplomatic channels, use them".
The court also asked the agency to find out whether it was happening only with Indian players, who were being banned from participating in the international events or with others also.
It had earlier noted that the sportsperson had lodged the complaint after the CAS upheld the World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA) decision not to give a clean chit to him in the doping violation case.
When CBI said WADA was not responding to it, the court asked then "should he be left remediless?"
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