An official with the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) plans to look into the reasons why several legal cases against Wat Phra Dhammakaya abbot Phra Dhammachayo were withdrawn in 2006.
Kosolwat Inthuchanyong, the deputy spokesman for the OAG, said on Saturday that he intended to find the original withdrawal order of the then-attorney general.
Under OAG regulations, any time a prosecution is withdrawn from the court, the decision has to be backed with a written reason, Mr Kosolwat said. He said he would find the withdrawal order on Monday.
Speaking in Prachin Buri, he was responding to a call by the activist abbot Phra Buddha Isara, who recently asked the ombudsman to re-examine the nine-year-old decision.
Pachara Yutithamdamrong, the attorney-general at the time, withdrew embezzlement cases againat Phra Dhammachayo, who had been charged in 1999 with illegally taking land and money from followers into his personal possession.
Mr Kosolwat said that the public prosecutor who had opposed Mr Pachara's decision in 2006 was still working as a senior prosecutor.
He added that he would check details of charges against the abbot and the statute of limitations for those cases.
It has been reported that 52 cases including embezzlement and lese majeste were withdrawn from court in August 2006, when former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra was in office. A month later he was overthrown by a military coup.
The outsized influence of the massively wealthy Wat Phra Dhammakaya and its abbot has long been a source of concern but authorities tend to tread carefully where matters of religion are concerned.
Many members of the public were dismayed that the Supreme Sangha Council recently cleared Phra Dhammachayo of wrongdoing in a case dating back 16 years, saying he had already transferred donated assets to the temple.
The resolution went against the written recommendation of the late supreme patriarch, His Holiness Somdet Phra Nyanasamvara, that Phra Dhammachayo should be defrocked.
The National Reform Committee, meanwhile, is seeking more information about separate allegations that the abbot colluded with suspects in the 12-billion-baht embezzlement scandal that has engulfed the Klongchan Credit Union Cooperative.
Even Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, while not referring to Dhammakaya directly, touched on the subject, which he admitted was "sensitive", in his weekly speech on Friday night.
"I would rather not use the words 'conflicting parties' because of the religious nature of the issue," Gen Prayut said. "However, the state has the responsibility to tackle legal violations, whether related to finances or other matters."