The chief justice said on Wednesday that the Appellate Division would rule today (Thursday) on the various applications filed before it concerning the legality of Bangladesh Bank's attempt to remove Muhammad Yunus from his position of managing director of Grameen Bank.
On 9 March the High Court ruled that that neither Yunus nor the nine elected shareholder directors of the Grameen Bank had a legal right to challenge the Bangladesh Bank's letter sent on 2 March to the chairman of GB, informing him that Yunus should have retired from his position at the age of 60.
Yunus and the nine directors then separately sought leave from the Appellate Division to appeal against the High Court order. On 5 April the seven-member court dismissed Yunus's application but later, on the same day, agreed to hear an application by his lawyers to recall the unsigned order on the grounds that they had not been given the opportunity to present all their arguments to the court.
The court on Wednesday continued to hear arguments by Sara Hossain, acting for nine Grameen Bank directors, on why it should give them leave to appeal against the High Court order.
Sara argued that the High Court was wrong to argue that her clients — all women borrowers elected by other members of the Grameen Bank — had no legal right to seek a remedy from the court.
'They have a proprietary right as shareholders, they have also been elected as directors by shareholders and as directors they have control of the bank's management,' she said.
She argued that her clients' power as directors to appoint and to remove the managing director had been subject to 'arbitrary, petty, perverse interference by state authority, highly belatedly.'
'The Bangladesh Bank is trying to usurp [the directors'] authority, against [their] wishes and remove the managing director without [their] consent. It is trespassing on [their] rights as directors of Grameen Bank,' she argued.
She also argued that it was not correct for the High Court to rule that no one should interfere with a public body as the Grameen Bank was a 'private body set up by statute', not a public body.
'That the bank was set up by statute does not make it a public body, nor makes its employees public servants,' she said.
She pointed to various sections of the Grameen Bank Ordinance 1983 that indicated the non-governmental nature of the bank.
'Only 25 per cent of the paid-up share capital of the bank is given by the government, 75 per cent is given by borrowers,' she said. 'The employees are paid from Grameen Bank's money. No money comes from the public exchequer.'
She said that if the High Court order remained intact, it would mean that the directors had no right to enforce their interests, that the managing directorship would have been 'arbitrarily usurped', that the confidence of the Grameen Bank's members would be shaken and the stability of the organisation would be under threat.
Sara called on the court to 'resist the arbitrary action' by the Bangladesh Bank and to 'step in and do what is necessary'.
Attorney-general Mahbubey Alam, however, told the court that the nine directors had no right to make any decision which 'goes against the law'.
He was referring to his previous argument that the law did not allow Mohammad Yunus to remain in office beyond the retirement age of 60.
He argued that the women directors had no right to come to court. 'The directors cannot come individually and say they are personally affected. The board can only come in its totality.'
'The petitioners say that they are aggrieved, but how are they aggrieved?' he asked.
Tawfique Nawaz, the lawyer for Bangladesh Bank, agreed with the attorney-general's argument that the directors 'have come before the court without holding a board meeting, without a board resolution and not in an official capacity'.
He emphasised that the will of the majority of the board must be reflected in a resolution.
He said that a collection of individuals cannot 'have standing before the court'.
He also argued that the Grameen Bank was a public body, so Yunus's attempt to stay on as managing director is an attempt to 'exercise the power of the state without entitlement'.'
Source: New Age
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