There is no statutory rule to this effect. What exists is a judicial tendency, applied on the facts, which is a very different thing from a right.
What the law actually says
The Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, 1956 provides that custody of a minor who has not completed five years shall ordinarily be with the mother. Beyond that age, the statute gives no preference by the child's gender at all. The Guardians and Wards Act, 1890 directs the court to the welfare of the minor as the paramount consideration.
Read the two together and the position is clear. Section 6 of the 1956 Act names the father as natural guardian of a boy or an unmarried girl and the mother after him, with the proviso about a child under five. Section 13 then says the welfare of the minor is the paramount consideration and that no person is entitled to guardianship under the Act at all if the court is of the opinion that their guardianship will not be for the welfare of the minor. So the welfare test does not sit alongside the statutory preferences; it overrides them. The full position, with the case law, is in the guide on the custody of a girl child in India.
There is one place where the child's sex does appear in the statute, and it is worth knowing because it is regularly quoted out of context. Section 17(2) of the Guardians and Wards Act directs the court, in considering welfare, to have regard to "the age, sex and religion of the minor", along with the character and capacity of the proposed guardian, their nearness of kin, the wishes of a deceased parent, and any previous relations with the child. Sex is one factor in a list of six, not a rule. Section 17(3) adds that where the minor is old enough to form an intelligent preference, the court may consider it.
Why courts often still place daughters with mothers
Judges frequently take the view that a girl approaching or in adolescence benefits from the mother's presence for reasons of care, guidance and privacy. That reasoning is common and it is often decisive, but it is applied as a factor. Where the mother is unable to provide a stable home, or where the child expresses a settled contrary preference, custody has gone to fathers.
There is no fixed age at which a child's preference becomes decisive, but courts routinely interact with children in chambers and give increasing weight to the wishes of a child mature enough to form an intelligent preference. Judges are also experienced at spotting a coached child, and coaching backfires.
What actually moves the decision
- Continuity: schooling, home, friendships, and who has been the day-to-day carer
- The practical realities of each parent's working life and support network
- The willingness of each parent to preserve the child's relationship with the other
- Any documented issue of safety, substance abuse or neglect
None of that is decided on assertion. Bring the school's records rather than a description of them, the paediatrician's file rather than a summary, the fee receipts showing which account they were paid from, and a calm chronology of who did the school runs and the doctor's visits over the last two years. The broader answer on who gets custody in a divorce covers how these factors are weighed against each other; a father who wants to understand how his own case is likely to be received should also read the note on custody for fathers in India.
Which court, and what to file
Where a divorce or other matrimonial proceeding is already on, custody is dealt with inside it under Section 26 of the Hindu Marriage Act, which lets the Family Court pass interim orders and make provision in the decree, and vary them afterwards. Where there is no such proceeding, you file a guardianship petition under the Guardians and Wards Act, 1890, and Section 9 sends that petition to the court where the child ordinarily resides, not where the parent lives. In Bengaluru both go to the Family Courts at Nyaya Degula, H. Siddaiah Road, and Section 7 of the Family Courts Act, 1984 expressly covers proceedings about guardianship of the person and custody of, or access to, a minor. Expect a reference to the court counsellor, and, if the child is old enough, an interview with the judge in chambers.
Custody is not all or nothing
Even where physical custody goes to one parent, the other ordinarily receives structured visitation and retains a say in major decisions, and joint custody arrangements are increasingly ordered where both parents live in the same city and can co-operate.
For a daughter in particular, the arrangement that tends to survive is the one that keeps her school, her friendships and her routine untouched and builds the other parent's time around them, rather than the one that divides the week symmetrically between two households on opposite sides of the city. Courts in Bengaluru are alive to what a weekday commute across the city actually does to a school-going child, and a proposal that ignores it reads as a proposal about the parent rather than about the child.