Tk 666cr tax order against Grameen Kalyan upheld

The chamber court of the Appellate Division on Monday upheld a High Court order directing Grameen Kalyan, founded by Nobel laureate and former interim government chief adviser Dr Muhammad Yunus, to pay Tk666 crore in taxes claimed by the National Board of Revenue (NBR).

Appellate Division Chamber Judge Justice Farah Mahbub declined to intervene in a petition filed by Grameen Kalyan seeking a stay on the High Court judgment.

“The court said it would not intervene in the case until the full judgment is released,” Barrister Khaja Tanvir Ahmed, who represented Grameen Kalyan, told reporters after the hearing.

He said Grameen Kalyan would file a leave-to-appeal petition against the High Court verdict after receiving the full copy of the judgment.

On September 10, the High Court ordered Grameen Kalyan to pay Tk666 crore in taxes claimed by the NBR, upholding the tax authority’s demand against the organisation.

The NBR raised the demand for five tax years, from 2012-13 to 2016-17, following a reassessment of Grameen Kalyan’s taxes. The dispute concerns tax deducted at source from dividends received from Grameenphone.
In 2017, Grameen Kalyan filed separate writ petitions with the High Court challenging the validity of the NBR’s tax demand.

On August 4, 2024, the High Court dismissed the writ petitions in a judgment delivered by a bench. The same bench later recalled the judgment after it emerged that the junior judge had previously served as a deputy attorney general representing the government in the cases.

The judgment was recalled and the case records were sent to the chief justice. The cases were subsequently assigned to a new bench for hearing.

The new HC bench comprising Justice Md Mozibur Rahman Miah and Justice Rezaul Karim later delivered the verdict upholding the NBR’s tax claim.

A member of the Grameen family of companies, Grameen Kalyan was founded by Yunus in 1996. It was registered with the Office of the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies and Firms under the Companies Act in November 1996 and with the NGO Affairs Bureau in July 2002.