An application for appointment of guardian under Section 7 of the Guardians and Wards Act must be attested by two witnesses as required by Section 10(3) of the Act. Failure to comply with this requirement renders the application defective and cannot be proceeded on under Section 11.

( 1 ) THIS appeal has been preferred under Section 47 of Guardians and Wards Act by Rabindra Nath Mukherjee against an order made under Section 7 of that Act rejecting his prayer to be appointed guardian of the person and property of minor Gautam Chatterjee who is his daughter's son. The parents of the minor are alive. Father of the boy who was joined as opposite party in the petition and is Respondent in this Court opposed the prayer of the petitioner appellant.

( 2 ) THE parties are governed by Dayabhag Hindu Law, and under that law undisputably father is the natural guardian of the person and property of minor son. That law still prevails under Section 12 of Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, 1956. Appellant's claim to be appointed guardian in preference to the father of the boy who by their personal law is the natural guardian of the person and property of the minor is based on the history of the boy's life who is now about 12 years old, being born in 1959.

( 3 ) IT is the admitted case of both parties that soon after the boy was born, he was brought to the house of his maternal grandfather and was brought up there and has been living there. Reason for that transposition of locus of the child at his early age has not been clearly stated by the appellant either in his application or in his deposition. But he has stated that it was at a time when the child was only 1 1/2 months' old. , and since then neither the father nor the mother of the boy has taken any interest in the affairs of the child. The boy was brought up as a son in the family of his maternal grandfather who was a teacher in a Primary School. He was educated in that School and having done well he has passed the preliminary stage and is now in a Higher Secondary School where he is a student of Class VIII.

( 4 ) ON the side of applicant emphasis has been put on the part of the story that since that early age of the boy the father of boy has not taken any interest in Ms affairs and has not paid any money for upbringing and education of the boy. None of the parents has even come to see the boy, so much so that even at his age of 11 years the boy does not know even his father and mother. In the Court during his deposition, the boy said that he did not recognise his parents.

( 5 ) THE necessity for making the application for being appointed guardian arose according to the applicant because recently the father of the boy for meeting expenses of marriage of his eldest daughter by a deceased wife had solicited his father-in-law for a loan of Rupees 5,000/- but the applicant did not oblige the son-in-law. That enraged the son-in-law and he filed a complaint in the Magistrate's Court alleging wrongful confinement of the minor child. The Magistrate ordered a Search Warrant to issue for the boy. To prevent the boy from being taken by that Search Warrant, the maternal grandfather made the application under Guardian and Wards Act and had the proceedings in the Magistrate's Court stayed.

( 6 ) ON the side of the Respondent the reason for leaving the boy at his early age with his maternal grandparents was that at the time when the child was born his parents were in Delhi where his father had been transferred in his service in the department Of Military Accounts of Government of India. Soon before the birth of their child, a young son of his maternal grand-mother had died. The mother of this infant son was then living at her father's place with the child and she found her mother disconsolate due to Brief of her son's death. To help the elderly lady in her grief, the daughter on compassionate grounds left her newly born son with her mother before she went back to Delhi with her husband. The bov was brought up by his maternal grandmother and has been living there since he was put in that care. According to their case the parents of the boy did come to see the boy whenever they came to Calcutta and also paid expenses for his upbringing and education- After he