1. The attitude of courts in the United States of America in dealing with the plea of discrimination against women, in the early cases, is often referred to as romantic paternalism. The social thinking and the approach to the question of the role women had to play in society was, even in that country, tradition bound for more than a century after equal rights of women had been recognised as an inviolable civil right. The marked change in the attitude of courts on the question of gender based discrimination is, a post 1970 phenomena in that country. The protectionist policy has now given way to the realisation that woman is in every respect entitled to claim equal rights with man. Bradwell v. State of Illinois, 16 Wall 131 (1873) to Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U. S.677 (1973) is a hundred years of interesting case history. Much more tradition bound, as we are in this country, we may perhaps take some time to get out of the hangover of our past to realise that under the Indian Constitution woman has equal rights with man and that needs to be secured, if necessary, by affirmative action.

2. We have two petitioners before us in two cases. Both are women. They found themselv