Last update on: Tue Jan 2, 2024 03:09 AM
A Dhaka court yesterday sentenced Nobel Laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus and three other top officials of Grameen Telecom to six months in jail in a case filed by the government over labour law violations.
Dr Yunus is the chairman of Grameen Telecom, while the three others are its directors Ashraful Hassan, Nurjahan Begum and M Shahjahan.
Soon after the verdict, the same court granted bail to all four for a month, following separate bail pleas.
The Third Labour Court of Dhaka Chairman Sheikh Merina Sultana gave both the conviction and the bail orders.
The four were also fined Tk 30,000 each, in default of which they would have to serve 25 more days in prison.
Further, the court directed them to comply with the relevant sections of the Labour Act, 2006, within a month.
The sections of the labour law under which the case was filed carry a maximum of six months’ imprisonment.
“I have been punished for a crime I did not commit. If you want to call it justice, you can,” Prof Yunus told reporters in his reaction while leaving the court premises around 3:30pm.
“It’s a travesty of justice to charge Prof Yunus in this way. The legal system is being weaponised to harass him. There are many cases of labour law violations in this country; there are many businessmen who are exploiting workers on which the government has done nothing. For the govt to prosecute Prof Yunus on these charges seems to be frivolous and disproportionate.” Irene Khan
“This verdict against me is contrary to all legal precedent and logic. I call for the Bangladeshi people to speak in one voice against injustice and in favour of democracy and human rights for each and every one of our citizens,” Reuters quoted him as saying in a statement after the verdict.
Defence counsel Barrister Abdullah-Al-Mamun told The Daily Star the judgement has been delivered in a hurried manner to blemish the image of Dr Yunus nationally and internationally.
“No offence has been committed in the eyes of the law, but they have been handed over the punishment,” he said.
State counsel Khurshid Alam Khan said Yunus and the three other Grameen Telecom officials have been convicted as they appointed employees on contractual basis and did not provide them the due benefits. The company also did not regularise their job in accordance with the rules of the Labour Act, 2006.
According to the case documents, Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments (DIFE) officials inspected the Grameen Telecom office in the capital’s Mirpur on August 16, 2021, and found several violations of labour laws there.
Three days later, the department sent a letter to the Telecom, saying the company did not regularise the job of 67 of its employees although the company should have done so.
“Outraged and deeply disturbed at the Yunus verdict particularly so because of the utter credibility crisis of the judicial case. Is justice being dispensed or vendetta and intolerance?”
Besides, the company did not set up the employees’ participation and welfare funds and did not pay the mandatory 5 percent of the company’s dividends to the workers, the case statement said.
On September 9, 2021, Labour Inspector (General) SM Arifuzzaman filed the case against Yunus and the three others, rather than against the company.
During cross examination, DIFE Inspector Md Tarikul Islam, the first prosecution witness, admitted that although his complaint was against the company, he did not press charges against the company.
He added that he named only four in the case out of the 12 or 13 people listed in various positions in the company’s Article of Memorandum.
Yunus’s defence maintained that he is a non-executive chairman of the company, and is not “actively involved in the conduct of the business”.
The prosecution witnesses agreed that no document was submitted proving that Yunus made decisions about daily operations of the company, the defence said.
The defence also mentioned that Grameen Telecom has no provisions for any permanent job structure because it works on contractual basis with Nokia Phone and so their employees are appointed contractually. Their contracts are renewed only after the renewal of the company’s agreement with Nokia Phone.
“Yunus was granted ‘immediate bail pending appeals’. Shocking. The British didn’t harass Tagore though he renounced the knighthood and wrote a seditious book Letters from Russia. Amartya Sen is harassed now in India. What’s wrong with us? Leave our only noble laureates alone.”
However, the employees of the company are receiving provident fund, gratuity and earned leave as well as other benefits like regular employees, it said.
In their case, the DIFE said a Workers Participation Fund and Welfare Fund had not been constituted as per section 234 of the labour law and 5 percent of the net profit had not been paid to these two funds and to the fund constituted by the Bangladesh Sramik (Labourer) Kalyan Foundation Law.
“Dr Yunus has created 50 social enterprises like Grameen Telecom. He has no shares in any of these. He does not get any dividends from these companies,” the defence argued, pointing out that since he does not profit, there is no question of sharing it.
The defence also held that the Telecom is a not-for-profit, and any profit it makes is absorbed back into the company.
While Yunus was sentenced to prison for this, Grameen Telecom had actually settled out of court with their employees in this regard in the past.
A statement sent by the company last September said that the company’s employees had filed a lawsuit with the High Court. During that process, the Telecom settled out of court with them and gave Tk 437 crore to 156 employees in five percent profits made over 12 years.
On May 23, 2023, the HC acknowledged the settlement and disposed of the case.
The prosecution witnesses said they did not know if the Telecom had ever been ordered to pay a fine to rectify.
The court framed charges in the case on June 6 last year.
Human rights activist and Supreme Court lawyer Barrister Sarah Hossain told reporters that how fast the trial proceedings have been finished and the judgement delivered is unprecedented.
Recording of depositions in the case ran till 8:00pm on one occasion, she said
The judge did not read out the whole judgement in the open court which is unusual, she added.
