Muhammad Yunus, the Bangladeshi pioneer of "microfinance" loans to help the poor, made a final legal appeal to the Supreme Court Wednesday against an order dismissing him from his own bank.

The Nobel laureate also asked the court to immediately suspend the central bank's order removing him from Grameen Bank, which he founded in 1983 and which provides collateral-free loans to 8 million rural borrowers.

Yunus, 70, who was celebrated worldwide for tackling poverty through microfinance cash loans, has fallen out with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, and his supporters say he has been targeted in a bitter smear campaign.

He was fired as managing director of Grameen Bank last week by the central bank, and Tuesday he lost a High Court appeal against his dismissal.

"A hearing has been set for the morning of March 15, and the full bench of the Supreme Court's appellate division, led by the country's chief justice, will hear the case," Tanim Hussain Shawon, one of Yunus' lawyers, told AFP.

During a preliminary hearing Wednesday, the Supreme Court refused to suspend the High Court's verdict.

The central bank removed Yunus on the grounds that he had been in his position illegally, as he failed to seek its approval when he was re-appointed indefinitely in 1999.

High Court Judge Muhammad Mamtaj Uddin Ahmed said in his ruling Tuesday that it was clear that the central bank's order was legal.

Analysts say Yunus' troubles stem from 2007,  when he floated the idea of forming a political party, earning the wrath of Hasina, who has publicly disparaged his work. Grameen's huge influence in Bangladesh and its move into solar panels and mobile phones also appear to have triggered the government's animosity.

AFP