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The Supreme Court has upheld a High Court ruling that quashed defamation proceedings against Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus.
A three-member panel of the Appellate Division led by Justice Zubayer Rahman Chowdhury issued the order on Sunday, dismissing the state's leave to appeal petition against the High Court ruling.
Additional Attorney General Aneek R Haque represented the state in court, while lawyer Tawfiq Hossain appeared for Yunus, reports bdnews24.com.
The defamation case was originally filed in a Mymensingh court in 2010 when Yunus was the managing director of Grameen Bank. In 2011, Yunus moved the High Court to have the case thrown out. On Oct 24, 2024, the High Court ruled in his favour and dismissed the proceedings.
After the publication of the full High Court verdict, the state filed a leave to appeal, which came before the Appellate Division’s Chamber Court on Jul 2. The Chamber Court then scheduled a hearing for Jul 27 before the regular bench.
According to the case dossier, in an interview with news agency AFP at the Grameen Bank headquarters on Jan 17, 2007, Yunus allegedly remarked that "politicians in Bangladesh engage in politics only for money, not to promote any ideology". The comment was carried by several national newspapers the following day.
Taking issue with the remarks, Nazrul Islam Chunnu, joint secretary of the Mymensingh district unit of the Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JaSaD), filed the complaint in the court of the senior judicial magistrate in Mymensingh.