MINOR's mother can act as guardian

Whether a mother of the minor child can act as guardian, when father is alive?

Minor’s guardian:

The Hindu minor’s natural guardian is defined in Sec.6 of Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act 1956;

Guardian means ‘a person having the care of the person of a minor or his property or both;

The natural guardians of Hindu minors are - in the case of a boy or an unmarried girl, the father and after him, the mother;

While the Hon’ble Three Judges Bench of the Supreme Court in Githa Hariharan v. Reserve Bank of India, 1999 (1) CTC 481:: AIR 1999 SC 1149, considered the definition ‘guardian’ and observed that the phrase ‘the father, and after him, the mother’ does not give an impression that the mother can be considered to be natural guardian of the minor only after the lifetime of the father.

(The word ‘after’ need not necessarily mean ‘after the lifetime’. It means ‘in the absence of’)

Both the parents are duly bound to take care of the minor-person and his property and act in the best interest of his welfare;