JUDGMENT : The petitioner is a divorced mother, and the 3rd respondent is her erstwhile husband. In 2011 the petitioner and the 3rd respondent obtained a divorce, as seen from Exts.P1 and P2. Ext.P1 agreement recorded the terms of the divorce—including the minor child’s custody—pending the matrimonial appeal No.278 of 2011. Ext.P2 is the judgment in that appeal and other connected proceedings. This Court, in fact, recorded the compromise and confirmed the divorce. Indisputably, the petitioner has the custody of the minor child and the 3rd respondent, as his father, the visitation rights. 2. It seems the petitioner, later, moved on to the United States of America, and now she wants to take her son, too. So she applied for a Passport to her minor son, who is about to complete 15 years—in one month. On her Ext.P5 application, the Regional Passport Authority, the 2nd respondent, asked her to get the consent from the minor's father. Aggrieved, the petitioner has filed this writ petition. 3. Despite the service of a notice, the 3rd respondent-father did not choose to appear. 4. Sri Haridas, the petitioner's counsel, has submitted that the petitioner is employed in the USA and wants to take her son there—to give him better educational and career opportunities. He submits that the mother wants to apply for a green card for the minor and that process must be completed before the minor completes 15 years. It will be by next month. Therefore, he urges this Court to direct the Regional Passport Officer to consider the petitioner's application, expeditiously, even on Tatkal basis. 5. The Assistant Solicitor General of India has submitted that the Regional Passport Officer is guided by the Passport Manual 2010. Paragraph 4, Chapter 9, of the Manual mandates that in a divorce if visitation rights are granted to either parent, the other parent, to obtain the Passport, must get that parent’s consent. So the endorsement on Ext.P5 cannot be faulted. At any rate, he has submitted that in the interest of the minor's future, this Court may issue appropriate directions. 6. Heard the learned counsel for the petitioner as also the learned Assistant Solicitor General for the respondents. 7. Indeed, the petitioner and the 3rd respondent got divorced and had an arrangement about the child: the mother to have the custody rights, and the father the visitation rights, as recorded in the Ext.P1 agreement. 6. Heard the learned counsel for the petitioner as also the learned Assistant Solicitor General for the respondents. 7. Indeed, the petitioner and the 3rd respondent got divorced and had an arrangement about the child: the mother to have the custody rights, and the father the visitation rights, as recorded in the Ext.P1 agreement. This found judicial acceptance in the Ext.P2 judgment. The mother continues to have the child's custody. The issue, however, concerns the father’s say in the matter of the minor getting the passport. 8. Granted, the boy—Master Aadish Abraham—is on the verge of completing fifteen years. Today, when the boy appeared before this Court on his own volition, I interacted with him. He has told me that he is getting schooled here and wishes to join his mother in the USA. There he wants to pursue his higher studies. He said that he was born on 22nd September 2003 and is studying in 10th standard. He has also, to a specific query, told me that his father never visited him in school, despite his having the visitation rights. 9. Indeed, "Children are not things to be molded, but are people to be unfolded." Jess Lair, an author of note. In Gajre v. Pathankhan, ( 1970 2 SCC 717 ) the father was found uninterested in the child’s welfare. So the Supreme Court ruled the mother to be the natural guardian of her minor daughter. The Court observed that “a rigid insistence of strict statutory interpretation may not be conducive for the growth of the child, and welfare being the predominant criteria, it would be a plain exercise of judicial power of interpreting the law so as to be otherwise conducive to a fuller and better development and growth of the child.” 10. In Githa Hariharan v. Reserve Bank of India, 1999 (2) SCC 228 the Supreme Court had to interpret Section 6 of the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, 1956. The provision deals with who the natural guardian should be; it lays down that the natural guardians of a Hindu minor are “in the case of a boy or an unmarried girl, the father, and after him, the mother.” The parental rights found pivoted around the word “after.” So the Court interpreted that expression expansively, displaying judicial creativity. 11. The provision deals with who the natural guardian should be; it lays down that the natural guardians of a Hindu minor are “in the case of a boy or an unmarried girl, the father, and after him, the mother.” The parental rights found pivoted around the word “after.” So the Court interpreted that expression expansively, displaying judicial creativity. 11. Githa Hariharan noted that gender equality is one of the fundamental principles of our Constitution; if the word ‘after' is to be read to mean a disqualification of a mother to act as a guardian during the father’s lifetime, it would definitely run counter to the basic constitutional mandate—gender equality. Normal rules of interpretation, it held, shall yield to the Constitution command. The word ‘after' shall have to be given a meaning which would sub-serve, Githa Hariharan observes, the need of the situation—that is, the welfare of the minor. So the word ‘after' does not necessarily mean ‘after the death of the father,’ on the contrary, it depicts an intent to ascribe the meaning ‘in the absence of’—be it “temporary or otherwise or total apathy of the father towards the child or even inability of the father by reason of ailment or otherwise.” 12. Here, the Manual does mandate that the applicant parent must produce the other parent’s consent to get the passport for the minor. The passport authorities did no wrong. But the dicta of Gajre and Githa Hariharan are loud and clear. A child’s future cannot be held for ransom, if it were, by an unwilling parent. Let no child be caught in the parental crossfire. So the Paragraph 4 of the Guideline—just a guideline, at that—cannot compel a well-meaning parent to perform something impossible: getting consent from the other estranged, unwilling, or unyielding parent. True, this exception cannot read itself into every situation; it must be under justifiable circumstances, as, for instance, a competent court could find. 13. I, therefore, hold that the Regional Passport Authority will consider the petitioner's Ext.P5 application and, given the urgency, process it even on Tatkal basis, without insisting on the petitioner’s producing the 3rd respondent’s consent. 14. I may further observe that the authority will expedite the process to safeguard the child's future. Thus the writ petition stands disposed of.