MISS India Worldwide 2012, Alana Seebarran, has filed a $50M lawsuit against the holder of the Miss India Worldwide Guyana franchise, Chandini Ramnarine, and her sister Lucria Rambalak, who was selected to be Miss India Guyana 2010. Papers obtained from the Supreme Court Registry in Georgetown have revealed that Ms. Seebarran alleges that Chandini Ramnarine failed to discharge contractual and fiduciary duties owed to her; and the claim against Ms. Rambalak is for impersonation and “passing off”.
Legal counsel for Ms Seebarran, Attorneys-at-law Messrs. Sanjeev Datadin and Charles S. Ramson, told this publication that the claim against Ms Lucria Rambalak is premised on a video in worldwide circulation on YouTube, and it speaks for itself. As to whether the YouTube video was a clear case of deliberate impersonation by Ms Rambalak, they would only say, “Those are your words.”
However, they did add that the impersonation had done much harm to the goodwill and reputation of their client, and Mr. Datadin said that Ms. Ramnarine did not discharge the contractual and fiduciary duties she owed to his client. According to him, Ms Chandini Ramnarine was obliged to act in the best interest of his client, but she had failed to discharge those obligations.
Asked if this newspaper could speak to his client, Mr. Ramson said litigants ought not to speak to the press about matters pending in court, since this constituted contempt, which would likely result in both the litigant and the publisher of the offending article being punished.
Miss India Worldwide, Alana Seebarran, was not in Malaysia to crown her successor, and reports in the local media had clearly indicated that all was not well within the Miss India Worldwide pageant.