Published on 11:25 AM, January 28, 2024

Labour law violation: Yunus, 3 others get bail

File photo of Dr Yunus. Photo: Palash Khan/Star

The Labour Appellate Tribunal today granted bail to Nobel laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus and three other top officials of Grameen Telecom.

Chairman (Acting) of Labour Appellate Tribunal, MA Awal, passed the order this morning.

The four filed appeals with the Labour Appellate Tribunal against a Dhaka Labour Court verdict in a labour law violations case. The appeal was accepted and the lower court's verdict, sentencing each of them to six months' jail, was stayed.

At the same time, it asked the court concerned to submit the case dockets on March 3.

The Labour Appellate Tribunal granted bail to the four until the disposal of the appeal.

The four earlier filed bail petitions with the tribunal after they appeared there around 10:45am. 

"We challenged the sentence at the Labour Appellate Tribunal, seeking my clients' acquittal in the case this morning," Prof Yunus's lawyer Abdullah-Al-Mamun told The Daily Star.

"We submitted a petition, containing some 25 points against the sentence," he said.

On January 1, Sheikh Merina Sultana, chairman of the Third Labour Court of Dhaka, sentenced Yunus, chairman of Grameen Telecom, and its directors Ashraful Hassan, Nurjahan Begum and M Shahjahan to six months in jail in a case.

Soon after the verdict, the court granted bail to all four for a month, following separate bail pleas.

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.

On September 9, 2021, Labour Inspector (General) SM Arifuzzaman filed the case against Yunus and the three others.

The court framed charges in the case on June 6 last year. Since It also recorded four prosecution witnesses.

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.