GOKAL NATH Vs. KRISHNA DEVI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by the father against the order of the learned District Judge dismissing his application under Section 25 of the Guardians and Wards Act for the custody of his minor children.

(2.) The appellant Gokal Nath and the respondent Shrimati Krishna Devi were husband and wife. They have two children, a son Rajan who at the time of making the application was 10 years of age and a daughter Pinki who was then about 4 1/2 years of age. The application for custody of the children was made on February 15, 1967. It appears that after the marriage, relations between the husband and wife became strained and the wife left for her father's house, and ever since she has lived there. The husband obtained a decree for judicial separation on the ground of desertion, and this was followed after the statutory period of two years by a decree for divorce. The minors continued to live with their mother at the house of their maternal grandfather. During the pendency of title proceedings for divorce, the husband made the application, out of which the present appeal arises, for the custody of the minors on the plea that he was their natural guardian and was legally entitled to their custody.

(3.) The application was contested by the wife. She alleged that the welfare of the minors was not safe in the hands of the husband, that he had never taken any interest in them and had been content to leave the wife to look after the children and had provided nothing for their maintenance. It was also alleged that there would be no one to attend to the children if they were left with the husband and that his relations with his own father were strained. The wife also asserted that she was teaching in a Government School, and was bringing up the children properly and was qualified to attend to their education,