KAULASHIA Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from an order of the District Judge of Gaya directing" a complaint against the appellants for the offence of contempt of Court.

(2.) The circumstances which gave rise to the order may for all material purposes be shortly stated. There is a minor girl named Mahmudan. She is a daughter of a woman named Kaulashia who was a widow and who has married or is living with a man named Nooruddin. An application was made before the District Judge by the sister of Kaulashia, named Naulashia that the minor girl be removed from the custody of her mother on the allegation that the mother was living a life which rendered her an unsuitable custodian for her daughter. Opposition was entered to that application by the mother.

(3.) Ultimately on 30 June 1931, Naulashia filed a petition stating that she had taken charge of the minor on 24 June 1931, and she undertook before the Judge not to marry the minor without the permission of the Court. The learned Judge directed that that petition should remain upon the file of the Court and it appears to have been taken by all the parties that until further orders Mt. Naulashia was to act as guardian of the person of the minor. Indeed on 22 August, Mt. Naulashia put in a petition asking that her name be cancelled from her guardianship and that her brother Chandu Mian may be appointed guardian. In that state of affairs Mt. Kaulashia, the mother of the minor, and the man Nooruddin with whom she was living, appear to have effected the marriage of the minor with a person whom they considered to be a suitable match, but the young girl was not sent to her husband and we are informed that she remains in fact under the custody of the mother and has remained throughout under the custody of the mother notwithstanding the order of the Court on 30 June that Mt. Naulashia should be appointed guardian.