The welfare of the minor is of paramount importance in custody disputes, and the best interests of the child can override the father's prima facie right to custody.

Horace Owen Compton Beasley, Kt., C.J.

1. This is an appeal from an order passed by the District Judge of Ramnad at Madura and there is also a memorandum of objections to that order. A petition was filed in the District Court under the Guardian and Wards Act. The first petitioner was the father of the minor girl in question and the second petitioner her elder brother. The petitioners asked for an order directing her to be placed in the custody of the first petitioner together with her jewels. The respondents were the maternal uncles of the minor girl. The petitioners alleged in the petition that the minor girl was aged and that she had been taken by the respondents out of the custody of the first petitioner, her father, a fortnight before the presentation of the petition on the pretext that her grandmother wanted to see her. The minor girls mother died when she was about one year old. It was also alleged in the petition that the respondents were trying to bring about the marriage of the minor girl with the first respondents son and that such a marriage was in violation of the Child Marriage Restraint Act. The petitioner stated that no guardian of the person or of the property of the minor had been appointed by any Court and that under the law the first petitioner as the father of the minor was entitled to be the guardian of her person and property. The learned District Judge made an order that the respondents were to hand over the minor with the jewels described in the counter-petition to the first petitioner and that the first petitioner was to allow the minor to remain with the respondents and their mother for four months in the year, i.e., January and February and July and August. He made the order directing the return of the minor girl to her father because he was of opinion that upon the reported decisions he was bound to do this but he has found some of the most important facts in the case against the petitioners and two of the petitioners allegations clearly false and put forward for the purpose of supporting the petition. The statement that the minor girl was only nine years of age he finds to be quite untrue as she was proved to be 13 years of age. The object in making this false statement clearly was to minimise the length of time during which the minor girl was living in the care of the respondents. It was also in order to charge the respondents with being about to commit a criminal offence by marrying an under-aged girl. The allegation that the girl was under the first petitioners protection alone until a fortnight before the date of the petition and that she was then taken away from him under a false pretext is also clearly untrue and so the learned District Judge finds as a fact. This was obviously done in order to make it appear that the minor girl had been in his custody all the time and had been taken out of his custody by a misrepresentation. The facts of the case really are that the minor girl when she was about one year old was, with the consent of the first petitioner, taken away to live with her maternal uncles the respondents. At about this time the first petitioner married a second wife and has had four children by her. It was probably because the first petitioner felt that neither he nor the second wife could look after the girl properly that she went to live with the respondents. She remained with the respondents ever since and has been, according to the learned District Judge, fondly brought up by the respondents and their mother ever since and she was at the time of the petition still in their custody. The minor girl was examined as a witness and stated that she was not willing to go and live with her father, the first petitioner, and that the respondents had made jewels for her and gave clothes to her. She stated that she had not seen her father and that he had not come to her village nor had she seen her brothers and sisters. We can see no reason why the evidence of this girl should not be