' These are two connected appeals arising from orders of two guardianship applications in respect of minor son Kamran alias Muhammad Junaid under the following circumstances : 1-A. Plaintiff Jamshed married Mst. Anisa Begum on 10-2-1968. Minor Kamran and another son Imran were born to them. On 20-12-72 plaintiff Jamshed divorced Anisa Begum and without waiting for the divorce to mature, he married another wife by name Mst. Alia. In the divorce deed he made the allegation that Anisa Begum was not of good character. On 17-12-1972 the defendant filed application for custody of her son Kamran who was with his father. The matter proceeded before the Ilnd Additional District Judge, Karachi who under his order dated 12-1-1974 allowed the custody of minor child Kamran to remain with the mother Mst. Anisa Begum. The plaintiff then preferred an appeal against that order in this Court, being Miscellaneous Appeal No, 19/74. Pending the appeal the minor crossed the age of 7 years and on this additional ground the plaintiff showed his desire to file a fresh application for custody. This was allowed and the Miscellaneous Appeal was disposed of. The plaintiff then filed the fresh application before the Additional District Judge and fresh evidence was heard. The learned Additional District Judge again reached the same conclusion that it was in the welfare of the minor that his custody should remain with his own mother. Against this decision the present Miscellaneous Appeal No, 26 of 1978 has been preferred.
2. In the order of the Additional District Judge, Karachi the issue regarding the welfare of the minor has been dealt with in detail. It has been explained that the plaintiff took a second wife even prior to the confirmation of the divorce pronounced by him in respect of his first wife. He then got a son from the second wife. The first wife has not married after the divorce. She is a double graduate working as a teacher and she has no other interest besides bringing up of her two sons. She has been staying all along in the house of her brother. On the other hand the plaintiff/father has not cared during all these years to send even bare maintenance allowance for the bringing up of his two sons. He has all along shown hatred for his first wife who has been divorced by him.
3. At the very outset Syed Hassan Zafar counsel for the plaintiff/ appellant, argued that the first wife who is mother of the minor children was not competent to have the custody of the minors because she had been divorced on account of bad character. Syed Hassan Zaffar was then reminded that under the present law the Hadood Ordinance has made such allegations of immorality against a lady punishable unless such allegations can be substantiated by evidence. He was, therefore, asked whether he still wanted to stick to this allegation during the course of these arguments. He then consulted his client and stated that he has no further details and he does not know in what way Mst. Anisa Begum was considered to be of bad character. The leaned counsel accordingly gave up this ground in support of contention that Anisa Begum was not qualified to have the custody of the minor children. These allegations were thus very lightly made. During the several hearings that this matter has remained pending and efforts were made to bring about some settlement it was found that the plaintiff was adamant and he showed any amount of hatred for his first wife. It would appear that the plaintiff has not been fair to the mother of the minors, and he cannot therefore be expected to act in a different way in case of her children specially when he has a son from the second wife whom he has been treating differently.
4. In view of this background I find that the opinion expressed by the learned Additional District Judge, Karachi in respect of the attitude of the plaintiff is based on valid and sound reasoning. A father who has married another wife cannot be expected to look after the children better their own devoted mother who has not cared even to obtain any allowance from the father for the maintenance of her minor children but has worked hard to earn sufficiently just to look after the children herself. The welfare of the minors therefore, demands that the children should continue to live in custody of the mother in spite of the fact that one of the minors may have even crossed the age of 7 years. It would be cruel to let a boy remain with the step mother in her house in the hope that the father would look after him in a better manner than the real mother of the child.
5. 1n the result both the appeals are dismissed with no order as to costs in the circumstances of the case.