Bangladesh's Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus on Tuesday lost his final legal battle to remain as the chief of the microlending Grameen Bank he founded nearly three decades ago as the Supreme Court rejected his appeal against the sacking, capping his month-long dispute with authorities.
"Dismissed," Chief Justice ABM Khairul Haque pronounced after the rejection of his appeal by a 7-member Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, which upheld an earlier High Court verdict validating his sacking as Managing Director of Grameen Bank by the central Bangladesh Bank, during a 4-hour hearing.
Earlier on March 8, a two-member High Court bench, after three days of hearing, had rejected 70-year-old Yunus' writ challenging his removal from the pioneering microlending agency that he founded in 1983.
Yunus was not present at the apex court when it delivered the verdict while his Grameen Bank postponed a press briefing they called
immediately after the judgement, sighting no reasons.
But Grameen Bank lawyers said another petition filed by nine Directors of the microfinance institution, who stood by Yunus, would come up for apex court's consideration on Wednesday though several legal experts feared it was unlikely to bring any different result.
The verdict came as reports earlier this week said negotiations to resolve the Yunus issue outside the court progressed towards a
"positive direction" amid growing international criticism of his unceremonious dismissal from the
microfinance bank.
No progress of the negotiation process, however, had been reported by either of the sides yet but Finance Minister AMA Muhith had earlier said the government looked for ways for an amicable settlement of the issue of Yunus, who visibly rallied huge international support behind him after his removal.
Yunus last week appeared before a five-member government committee constituted in January this year to "review" the Grameen
Bank transactions, which, however, was not directly linked to his removal.
Committee's chair Monwar Ahmed Khan at that time said Yunus told them that he was now thinking how he could be associated with the
Grameen Bank in an "alternative way."
The apex court had earlier adjourned until April 4 the hearing on Yunus' appeal, allowing both sides to take more time to reach a
compromise as insisted by the United States and other major development partners.
Bangladesh Bank, which is nominally independent from the government, fired Yunus on March 2 this year as it found that that his
2000 appointment as the microlending agency's executive chief was faulty because the central bank's mandatory approval was not obtained
at that time.
Yunus' chief counsel Kamal Hossain on Tuesday told the apex court that the central bank could give post facto approval of the 2001
Grameen Bank board Regulation that the Nobel laureate could stay as long as he wished as its chief.
But Attorney General Mahbubey Alam said there was no scope for the approval of the regulation as Yunus exceeded the 60-year age limit
for banking services 10 years ago.
Yunus' experiment of poor men's banking earned Bangladesh the repute of being the home of microcredit. He himself got the Nobel Peace Prize along with his Grameen Bank in 2006.
The government has 25 per cent stake in Grameen Bank that employs 24,000 people and provides collateral-free loans to eight
million borrowers, the vast majority from rural areas.
Analysts earlier said Yunus' troubles stemmed from 2007 when he announced formation of a political party, an idea that did not please
either Premier Sheikh Hasina or her archrival Khaleda Zia of BNP, while he himself abandoned it within months.
But Yunus' removal came as he apparently developed a growing dispute with the ruling Awami League in recent months after a Norwegian TV aired a documentary questioning the transaction of a Norwegian donor fund violating the agreement.
Despite a green chit issued by Norwegian government relieving him of the allegations, the government formed a five-member "review committee" to examine Grameen Bank transactions, though his removal came ahead of the submission of the report by the investigators.
Yunus was summoned to lower courts three times in the past several months in cases nominally connected to Grameen Bank, the model
of which was copied in a number of developing and developed countries despite criticism of its effectiveness in removing poverty and for its interest rates.
Amid a massive international and civil society criticism of Yunus' removal, the US last month warned that its relations with Bangladesh could be exposed to threats unless the Hasina government reached a compromise with the Nobel laureate.
"If there is no compromise, it will have an effect on our bilateral relations," US Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake told newsmen at the fag end of his five-day visit to Bangladesh when he met Hasina and several other senior government leaders.
Yunus earlier this week told a foreign newspaper he was "not a political threat to anyone" in Bangladesh and would like to resolve
issues "if any" with Prime Minister Hasina as the negotiation process was launched.
"The real issue at stake is the right of the bank's 8.3 million borrowers to control their own financial future or whether they will be forced to cede their control to outside
authorities," Yunus said.