Thaindian News

Dhaka, March 7 (IANS) The Dhaka High Court will Tuesday deliver its verdict on Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus’s ouster from the Grameen Bank.

The high court closed the proceedings after hearing the lawyers from both sides for two days and fixed 2 p.m. Tuesday for its order, the Star Online reported.

Yunus, 70, was the managing director of the Grameen Bank, which is partly owned by the government. He has challenged the order of the Bangladesh Bank, the country’s central bank, removing him from the post that he held since the bank’s inception more than three decades ago.

He pioneered the bank for rural women, affording them microcredit, a venture that has been replicated in many countries, winning the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for himself and for the bank.

His cause has been taken up by several governments, including the US, and his supporters who have formed the “Friends of Grameen” organisation. They have criticized the manner in which Yunus was ousted.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government said that Yunus’s tenure is governed by the rules applied to other banks.

It said Yunus should have stepped down under the rules governing the age bar. Yunus has challenged the legality of the order saying the government is only a minor stakeholder in the bank.

His counsel told the court that there is no legal bar for the microcredit pioneer to continue as the managing director of the bank since the central bank’s directive to remove him was illegal.

Saying that their client was appointed as the managing director with approval of the central bank as per the provisions of the Grameen Bank Ordinance, 1983, his lawyers pointed out that the removal of Yunus without any show-cause notice was a violation of law.

The government said it removed Yunus after he refused to step down. Yunus said he was ready to step down but wanted his succession to take place smoothly.