CUTTACK: For the second day on Monday, the eight-year-old boy Millennium Bismay was seen moving with his mother on the corridors of the Orissa High Court in a pensive mood as his case was adjourned to Tuesday.

The HC is likely to deliver the final verdict on the day whether the minor boy from Balasore district would be given a special permission to sit for the next month's annual High School Certificate (HSC) examination-2007. The HC adjourned the case after the petitioner filed a rejoinder to the affidavits filed by the State Government and the State Board of Secondary Education (BSE).

The State Government and the BSE earlier filing affidavits in the High Court opposed the writ petition filed by the minor boy's uncle on the ground that rules did not permit a student below 14 years to sit for the annual HSC exam.

Bismay's uncle had moved the HC seeking a direction to the authorities concerned to allow the boy to sit for the examination after condoning his age.

Similar cases

The petitioner in his rejoinder, reiterating his plea, informed the bench that the Uttar Pradesh board this year had allowed a seven-year-old girl Sushama Verma to sit for the Class X examination next month. Similarly, a nine-year old boy Tathagat Tulsi of Bihar was allowed to sit for the final school leaving examination in 1994.

The rejoinder stated that Bismay is a gifted child with extraordinary memory power who has already completed the entire Class X course studying at home. Moreover, the boy has successfully qualified in the pre-test examination held in September and the subject competency test of the BSE in November last year, the petitioner said in its rejoinder.

The rejoinder also quoting several child psychologists said that gifted children were assets of incalculable value to society.

High intelligence was a gift of nature, which should not be allowed to go waste, the rejoinder said.

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