The Central Administrative Court ruled against the Finance Ministry’s order for former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to pay 35 billion baht in compensation for her graft-plagued rice-pledging scheme.
The ruling responded to complaints against the compensation order filed by Yingluck and her husband Anusorn Amornchat. They accused nine officials including the prime minister, the finance minister, the deputy finance minister and the permanent secretary for finance of being responsible for the compensation order that they considered as illegitimate.
The court ruled that the order was illegitimate because corruption in the rice-pledging scheme involved officials at the operational level and Yingluck acknowledged only the memorandums of understanding for government-to-government sales of rice from her rice scheme and she had nothing to do with any contracts of the rice sales.
Besides, the Finance Ministry admitted that it did not have clear evidence to show Yingluck had been directly responsible for any damage from the rice-pledging scheme.
Norawit Lalaeng, Yingluck’s lawyer, said he would be ready for an appeal from the Finance Ministry.
The court’s ruling not only stopped the seizure of Yingluck’s assets for the ordered compensation but also stated that she had nothing to do with corruption in the rice-pledging scheme, he said. (TNA)
