Dhaka: Nobel Laureate Professor Mohammad Younus yesterday challenged his removal on a central bank order from the Grameen Bank in the High Court while the government said there was no alternative to removing him from his position.
"We have filed the writ petition against the Bangladesh Bank order relieving him of the charges of the Grameen Bank's managing director," a lawyer told Gulf News.
A two-member High Court bench comprising judges Mumtaz Al Deen Ahmad and Gobinda Chandra Thakur fixed March 6 for delivering an order on the writ petition as 70-year old Younus's chief counsel Kamal Hussain appeared in the court in the afternoon.
Hussain told the court that the government had removed the Grameen Bank founder from his post without issuing any "show cause notice" while Younus himself had sought to retire earlier "as he became older" but continued as its managing director at the request of the institution's board of directors.
In a simultaneous move nine directors of Grameen Bank stood by Younus filing a separate writ petition in the same bench challenging the legality of a Bangladesh Bank order removing its founding managing director for simultaneous hearing of both the writs.
"It is a legal affair and I have come to discuss it," Younus told newsmen late on Wednesday after he consulted Hussain late yesterday hours after receiving the order of his removal.
In a related development finance minister A.M.A. Muhith said, "It had no alternative to removing Mohammad Younus from the position of managing director of the Grameen Bank as all government efforts to find an honourable solution went in vain".
"We know very well that it would tarnish our image globally. But all our attempts to find an honourable solution failed. We had to do it in line with the law of the land," he told newsmen after a meeting with foreign diplomats and representatives of foreign donor and aid agencies including the World Bank who were summoned to be told the decision.
Operational issues
Officials familiar with the meeting said Muhith told the envoys that Younus' removal would not harm Grameen Bank's operations as it "established itself on a solid footing over the last 30 years" and denied there was any political vendetta against the Nobel Laureate as was being widely speculated, saying everything has been done maintaining the rules.
"We are proud of him. He earned us the Nobel Peace Prize. A respected man like him should not go like this, it was not expected," Muhith said.
Grameen Bank general manager and spokeswoman Jannat-E-Quanine meanwhile at a press conference claimed that the pioneering micro lending agency followed recruitment rules in appointing Younus as its managing director in 2000.
"According to the [Grameen] Bank's legal experts, founder of Grameen Bank and Nobel laureate Mohammad Younus is continuing in his office", she said rejecting its government-appointed titular chairman Mozammel Huq's comments on Wednesday that the mandatory approval of the Bangladesh Bank was not obtained during the appointment.
