The National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) is preparing to investigate whether any state officials were engaged in alleged land encroachment in Saraburi.
NACC acting chairman Witthaya Arkhompitak said the commission will probe the Phu Nub Dao Cafe & Farm, which allegedly built structures illegally on the Sor Por Kor land reform area in Muak Lek district.
Mr Witthaya said authorities were checking to see if state officials were complicit in the alleged land encroachment and if further investigations were warranted within the NACC's power to act.
Kritsakorn Sanitsakdee, director of the Office of Public Sector Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC) Region 1, which supervised the case in Saraburi, said earlier that five business people had encroached upon the Phu Nub Dao area where the cafe is located from 2014-2015.
The Royal Forest Department and the PACC jointly arrested the five individuals, one of them the wife of a tambon administrative organisation (TAO) executive in May. The Criminal Court sentenced the five to jail. However, the jail terms for four were suspended while the sentence against the TAO executive's wife was not. She was serving six months in jail.
The four others, despite facing a court conviction, re-applied for the right to access the same land plot.
"This court has declared the Phu Nub Dao area covering some 100 rai to be a community forest over which no Sor Por Kor land documents may be issued," Mr Kritsakorn said. "However, certain Saraburi land reform officials at the time went ahead and released the land documents for the business people. It's a blatant violation of the law."
He said that even if the Sor Por Kor land certificates could be legally allocated for the land, the business people would not have been qualified to receive them. Reformed areas are designated for landless farmers to conduct farming, are non-transferable, and cannot be sold.
The Agricultural Land Reform Office has said the Phu Nub Dao area was earlier approved for setting up the "Agricultural Innovation Learning Centre". However, the cafe was instead opened in the area with buildings erected on the site without permission.
Phu Nub Dao Cafe & Farm has said it operates as a learning centre that disseminates knowledge about livestock to farmers.
