Affirmative action and reservation for women and oppressed sections of society are constitutionally valid and in line with the Constitutional objectives.

1. The petitioner, a member of the Manimala Panchayat Service Co-operative Bank, contends that S.28A of the Co-operative Societies Act, 1969 newly introduced under the Co-operative Societies (Amendment) Ordinance, 1985 is ultra vires of Art.14 of the Constitution. S.28 A mandates that in the Committee of every Society one seat each shall be reserved for a woman and a person belonging to the Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes.

2. The proposal to conduct election to the Committee of the Society on 31-5-1986 is also challenged. The notice dated 5-5-1986, indicated that the election will be for 13 members, one of whom will be a woman and one, a member belonging to the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes. The pre-existing number of the Committee was 11. The number has been increased under the enabling provision of S.28 A and fixed as 13.

3. The challenge against S.28 A, is without substance. No materials have been furnished to show how the provision generates discriminatory results or arbitrariness in the functioning of the Co-operative Societies. It is very rarely that one notices a woman member in the governing set up of a Co-operative society. Their absence in the Co-operative committees is so universal and so notorious as could even be taken judicial notice of.

4. It is a sad fact that despite the passage of nearly four decades after the ushering in of the Constitution, women have not advanced much in many areas of human activity. The necessity for making a special provision for women and children had been recognised in the context of Art.15 of the Constitution. The endeavour to eliminate inequalities in status, facilities and opportunities, is one of the proclaimed Directive Principles of State Policy (vide Art.38).

5. Prejudices, strong prejudices, existed against women for a long period of history. There has been seepage of such prejudices even in unexpected places the enlightened minds. Look, for example, the decision rendered in 1873 by the Supreme Court of America which shut to the women's face the entry door to the lawyers' profession: and read the observations:

"the Civil Law as well as nature herself has always recognised wide difference with respective spheres and destinies of man and woman. Man is or should be woman's protector or defender. The natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belongs to the female sex, evidently unfits it for many of the occupations of civil life" (emphasis supplied)

Perhaps that is the reason why Andra Beteille observed that in the 19th century, even in America, few people seriously believed that the doctrine of equality of opportunity was intended to cover Negroes or women. Even in the beginning of the 20th century, the same impression about women would appear to have continued in that country. Justice Brewer, of the American Supreme Court, in the course of his opinion given in Curt Mutter v. State of Oregon, 208 U. S.412 observed:

"History discloses the fact that woman has always been dependent upon man.

He established his control at the outset by superior physical strength, and this control in various forms, with diminishing intensity, has continued to the present Even though all restrictions on political, personal, and contractual rights were taken away, and she stood, so far as statutes are concerned, upon, an absolutely equal plane with him, it would still be true that she is so constituted that she will rest upon

and look to him for protection: " (emphasis supplied)

6. The situation, however, has vastly changed. The theory of Emile Durkheim, the French sociologist, that the difference in brain size between men and women increased with the advance of civilisation has now been fully discredited. Time is long long past, when as is the 17th century France, woman could be treated as a weaker vessel fit only to bear children for their male masters. The shackles have been broken by the women. Even the very Supreme Court of America which barred the women's entry to the Bar, has now w