Supreme Court Rejects Farm Land Grab

Court rejects farm land grab

Phuket - The Supreme Court yesterday confirmed an appellate decision to evict a well-to-do family from a 69-rai plot designated for landless farmers in Kathu district.

"The national land reform programme is reserved for farmers and non-farming individuals are not qualified to utilise land reform plots," the high court said in its verdict which was read out in the Phuket Provincial Court.

Yesterday's ruling was the third against land grabs by Phuket tycoons. Prosecutors have targeted many prominent families in order to free up plots designated for farming, following the land reform scandal in 1995.

For the case in question, the prosecution petitioned the eviction of businessman Banlue Tantiwit on the grounds he had wrongfully declared himself a farmer in order to put his name on the land reform programme.

During the trial, Banlue died and his heiress Arunrat Sawatthong inherited the plot and became defendant.

The defence argued the original owner sold the right for land utilisation to the Tantiwit family in 1980.

After the land reform law was enacted, the plot was within the area designated for redistribution. The family then suspended its plan to petition for a land right document and allowed the plot to be part of the land reform programme without contest.

Banlue applied for land utilisation of his own plot by submitting his settlement on the land as evidence. Land reform authorities had verified his farming credentials before granting him the right to settle on and utilise the plot. But the high court said the key issue was whether the defendant was entitled to the land reform programme.

- The Nation