July 9, 2024
DHAKA – Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus and six others of Grameen Telecom today filed a petition with the High Court challenging a Dhaka court order that framed charges against them in a case filed over misappropriation of about Tk 25.22 crore of Grameen Telecom Workers’ Profit Participation Fund.
Lawyer Abdullah-Al-Mamun submitted the petition on behalf of the accused, seeking an HC order to scrap the trial proceedings of the case.
Abdullah-Al-Mamun told The Daily Star that the HC may hear the petition tomorrow.
Citing the petition, he said his clients have not committed any offence of money laundering or embezzlement or fraudulence.
They paid the money to their workers in accordance with law, he said, adding that there is no question of money laundering as no money was deposited to them.
He added that the allegations brought against the petitioners, including Prof Yunus, are fabricated and baseless.
The six other petitioners are Nurjahan Begum, Md Shahjahan, Nazneen Sultana, Hizzatul Islam, Nazmul Islam and Ashraful Hasan.
Earlier on June 25, two Supreme Court lawyers, who are also accused in the same case, filed another petition with the High Court challenging the Dhaka court order that framed charges against Prof Yunus and 13 others in the case.
SC lawyers Md Yousuf Ali and Jafrul Hasan Sharif submitted the petition to the HC, also saying that they have not committed any offence, but the trial court delivered the charge framing order using a Google based AI tool, which is not permitted by the law.
The entire amount of Tk 25.22 core was part of the entitlement of the listed 164 individual employees of Grameen Telecom, who contributed to their trade union to pay the expenses including lawyers’ fees.
The trade union representative paid the fees to them (lawyers Yousuf and Jafrul) out of that amount and the same does not constitute any offence and therefore, the instant proceedings are liable to be quashed to ensure justice, the SC lawyers stated in the petition.