Yunus petition against his firing rejected

DHAKA, Bangladesh, March 8 (UPI) -- A Bangladeshi court Tuesday upheld the firing of Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus from his bank post.

The 70-year-old microfinance pioneer was dismissed as managing director of the Garmeen Bank, which he founded and which is now 25 percent state-owned, the Bangladesh Daily Star reported.

The Bangladesh Bank in a letter said Yunus had failed to seek its approval before he was reappointed to his Grameen position.

The high court upheld the central bank's claim Yuan had crossed the regulation age of 60 to serve as managing director, the report said. The court also said a managing director cannot serve indefinitely.

Yunus' attorney said his client plans to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court, the Star reported.

Yunus' microfinance campaign provides small loans to help improve the economic lot of poor entrepreneurs who would be ignored by major banks, a concept that has been adopted in many countries.

The Financial Times reported the Grameen Bank, founded by Yunus 34 years ago, currently has about $955 million in outstanding loans to more than 8 million borrowers, most of them poor women, and deposits of about $1.4 billion.