JUDGMENT

Taylor J:

The facts and arguments appear sufficiently from the judgment.

In this action a Malay woman claimed the custody of a girl twelve years old on the ground of adoption.

The plaintiff and her husband, whose name was Jalil, adopted the infant daughter of Jalil's brother and brought her up from birth to the age of eleven years. The adoptive father died and shortly afterwards the natural father took the child, by force and strategem, away from the adoptive mother. The child thereafter lived, not in her original home but in her paternal grandfather's house.

It was clear that the grandfather was the real defendant and also that the trouble arose, in part, because the plaintiff, who was a native of Trengganu, wished to go back to her own relatives there, taking the child with her.

The main questions to be decided were whether what happened amounted to a legal adoption and, if so, what is the position where the adoptive father dies and the blood relations compete with the adoptive mother for the custody of the child.

The Ketua Kampong gave evidence that adoption is a recognised institution or practice among the Pahang Malays and that the parties are usually related but