Shimla, March 23 In a special case, the Himachal Pradesh High Court on Wednesday allowed an eight-year child of a school in Palampur town to provisionally admit as a day scholar in Class 8 of the school.
A division bench of Chief Justice Mohammad Rafiq and Justice Jyotsna Rewal Dua passed this order on the civil writ petition filed by the minor through her father Santosh Kumar.
The petition says the student is an extraordinary, exceptional and intellectually superior child, who is blessed with skill of grasping things quickly.
Her parents are stated to be employed as teachers in the Education Department. Her father earlier filed a petition on her behalf in 2021 seeking direction to permit her to appear in class 8 as a special case after relaxing age criteria.
The school principal, however, expressed concern that permitting her to appear in Class 8 examination would amount to putting her to tremendous pressure.
The bench observed that they are deeply conscious of the situation that a child of such tender age might face a lot of peer pressure, emotional and physical stress in future in case she is permitted to undertake Class 8 examination at this stage.
"There would be many such eventualities which she may face in future on account of her accelerated jumps at a tender age of eight years which she and her parents might not even visualise today."
However, the court observed that they are also aware of the fact that the child may be a genius and intellectually superior child as is claimed in the petition.
Taking stock of every material aspect, the court doesn't deem it appropriate to permit her to straightaway undertake the final examination. However, to balance the scales and to see her overall progress, the court directed the respondents to provisionally admit her as a day scholar in Class 8 in Rainbow Public Senior Secondary School, Dharamaan in Palampur.
The court ordered that in case, the child takes provisional admission as a day scholar, then her overall progress shall be monitored on a regular basis by the school.
She has been allowed to provisionally appear in all the class tests, term examinations and all related school activities etc.
The court listed the matter for next hearing on April 28.
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