JUDGMENT

Malik, J. - This is an appeal against the order passed by the learned District Judge of Bulandshahr under the Guardians and Wards Act (Act 8 of 1890). The appellant Mt. Samiunnissa applied that she be appointed guardian of the person of the minor Rashida Khatun, who at the time of the application in the year 1941 was a girl ten years old. The application was opposed by the mother of the minor Mt. Saida Kha-toon. During the pendency of the contest between the mother and the grandmother of the minor, Sayeed Ahmad brother of the appellant filed an application on 3rd August 1941 supporting the application of Mt. Samiunnissa for guardianship and praying in the alternative that in case the Court was not willing to appoint Mt. Samiunnissa the Court may appoint him, Sayeed Ahmad, as the guardian. The learned District Judge by an order dated 30th August 1941 appointed the mother as guardian of the person of the minor and directed that the mother should make proper arrangements for secular and religious education of the minor and submit a report to the Court on these points from time to time, and further passed an order that she or her husband Abdul Aziz should not arrange the marriage of the minor without the Court's permission. Sayeed Ahmad has taken no further interest in the proceedings and is not represented before me. The grandmother Mt. Samiunnissa, however, objects to the order passed by the learned District Judge and claims that she should have been appointed the guardian of the minor. Saida Khatoon, the mother of the minor, was known as Daisy Lal and was married to a Christian. On the death of her husband she embraced Islam and assumed the name of Mt. Saida Khatoon and married Jamil Ahmad, a Syed, who worked as a motor driver. The minor is the daughter of Jamil Ahmad by Mt. Saida Khatoon. Syed Jamil Ahmad died in the year 1933 and in January 1936 Mt. Saida Khatoon married one Abdul Aziz, L.M.S., medical practitioner, Bulandshahr. Abdul Aziz is not related within the prohibited degrees to the minor, and under the Mahomedan law, on Mt. Saida Khatoon's remarriage with Abdul Aziz, who was a person not related within the prohibited degrees, she, Mt. Saida Khatoon, lost her right to guardianship and under the Mahomedan law Mt. Samiunnissa, the grandmother of the minor became entitled to the guardianship. The learned Counsel for the appellant, therefore, urges that the learned District Judge had no right to appoint Mt. Saida Khatoon as the guardian of the minor and he was bound to act according to the personal law of the minor and appoint the appellant Mt. Samiunnissa. Great reliance is placed on behalf of the appellant on Section 17, Clause (1), Guardians and Wards Act and the interpretation put on that section by a Bench of this Court in Mt. Kundan Begam Vs. Mt. Aisha Begam . Section 17, Clause (1), Guardians and Wards Act reads as follows:

In appointing or declaring the guardian of a minor the Court shall, subject to the provisions of this section, be guided by what consistently with the law to which the minor is subject, appears, in the circumstances, to be for the welfare of the minor.

The learned Counsel for the appellant argues that the Court can, therefore, consider the welfare of the minor and appoint a guardian consistently with the law to which the minor is subject, and the personal law can, therefore, not be disregarded by the Court and must be obeyed. Reliance is placed, as I have already said, on a Division Bench ruling of this Court reported in Mt. Kundan Begam Vs. Mt. Aisha Begam . In that case a minor Muslim girl was living with her grandmother who before she had married was a prostitute, and after she became a widow she again went back to her former life and was living with some of her female relation who were still carrying on the profession of prostitution. The mother to have the child removed from such surroundings applied that she should be appointed the guardian of the minor. Her application was opposed o