The Central Bankruptcy Court will begin hearing a case against ex-Mahidol University dentistry lecturer Dolrudee Jumlongras, who defaulted on her scholarship, on March 14.
Yukol Laopoonsook, director-general of the Bankruptcy Litigation Department, said the date was set after the department filed a lawsuit with the court on Dec 21 to have Dr Dolrudee, now a researcher at Harvard University, declared bankrupt, in order to help collect her scholarship debt.
Dr Dolrudee, better known as Dr Porsche in the United States, has been named as the only one of 5,000 state scholarship grantees to breach the scholarship contract and leave the debt burden to be paid by her guarantors. She sought assistance when she won a scholarship to study for a master's degree and PhD at Harvard University in 1993, Arporn Kaenwong, secretary-general of the Office of the Higher Education Commission, said.
Mr Yukol said the case was deemed a normal one of dealing with a debtor failing to pay off a creditor, and nothing to do with any act of corruption.
Ms Arpon earlier admitted that Thai law could not be enforced against Dr Dolrudee since she had married an American and become a US citizen. The statute of limitations in a bankruptcy case is three years.