Yunus loses HC appeal against sacking

Muhammad Yunus, the Bangladeshi winner of the 2006 Nobel peace prize, on Tuesday lost a high court appeal after being sacked from his own bank in a bitter clash with the country's authorities.  Yunus, 70, who is celebrated worldwide for tackling poverty through his pioneering “microfinance“ cash loans to small farmers and villagers, was fired last week on the orders of Bangladesh's central bank. Backed by a high-profile international campaign amid al- legations of a political vendetta, he defied the order by re- turning to work at Grameen Bank's headquarters and lodging an appeal which he will now take to the Supreme Court. “Yunus has been continuing in his job with no legal basis. Therefore, his petition is rejected,“ judge Muhammad Mamtaj Uddin Ahmed told the court on Tuesday. It was “crystal clear“ that the order to remove Yunus from his post as managing director was legal, Ahmed said. “Also, the managing director is an officer of the bank, and the mandatory retirement age for bank officers is 60, so he has exceeded his retirement age long ago,“ he said. The central bank--which is nominally independent from the government--removed Yu- nus on the basis that he had been in his position illegally since failing to seek its approv- al when he was reappointed indefinitely in 1999. “There is no such thing as an appointment for life. Yunus should have rejected this ap- pointment when the Grameen Bank board made it,“ attorney general Mahbubey Alam told reporters.