Panchapakesa Aiyar, J.-This appeal is against the order of the District Judge, Coimbatore, appointing the respondent, the mother of the minor girl, aged about two and a half years, as the guardian of her person, giving the appellant, the father, only the right to visit her at all convenient times, and expressing the hope that the appellant and his first wife, the minor’s mother, would again join together in spite of the appellant’s having taken for himself a second wife.

The learned counsel for the appellant urged that the lower Court’s order cannot be sustained as the parties are Hindus governed by the Mitakshara law and the father’s right to be the guardian of his minor children cannot be taken away unless he is proved to be unfit to be the guardian. He relied on the ruling in In the matter of the petition of Prankrishna Sarma1. That was a criminal case, and there the learned Judges were unable to find any authority for the proposition that the mother can ever have a right to the custody of her legitimate children adverse to the father, the emphasis being on the adverse nature of her custody. That ruling is a very old one, and the law has moved, consciously and unconscious