Miss India Earth 2008 relinquishes title over controversy

Mumbai, Apr 11 (UNI) Femina Miss India Earth 2008 Harshita Saxena has relinquished her recently won title after a prior contract with Gladrags barring her from participating in the contest came to light.

Next in line Tanvi Vyas took over the title of from Harshita who said, ''I apologize to the officials and voluntarily surrender the title of Pantaloons Femina Miss India Earth 2008. It was an oversight on my part.'' Harshita was under a two-year contract with Gladrags beginning March 13, 2006, that disqualified her from taking part in the Miss India contest.

The finale of the Femina Miss India contest was held on April 5.

''Since I had read the contract two years back, I did not remember the exact dates. I tried getting in touch with the Gladrags officials to confirm the expiry date, however there was no response from them,'' Harshita said on the mistake.

She also expressed her disappointment with Gladrags officials who had failed to give her a copy of her contract. She was not given any assignments during the contract period either.

Accepting Harshita's resignation, Femina Miss India National Director Sameer Soni said in a release, ''It is unfortunate that such an incident has occurred. Ideally, the officials at Gladrags should have raised this issue earlier as there were 21 days of training before the finals and there was enough and more media exposure of the girls to the world at large during the training period. I really feel sad for Harshita as just for an unexpired period of three days she had to let go of her title.'' New Pantaloons Femina Miss India Earth 2008, Tanvi Vyas will represent India at international paegents, added the release.

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