Yingluck had accused Jirachai Moonthongroi, chairman of a government committee that investigated the rice-pledging scheme, of violating Criminal Code Section 157 by holding her responsible for massive compensation of state losses but her case was dismissed.

According to Yingluck’s defence team, Jirachai did not carry out the investigation in line with the law and failed to interview defence witnesses sufficiently.

The case also alleged that Jirachai did not check rice inventory figures properly so the estimate of damages resulting from the scheme was not accurate.

In addition, the Jirachai committee did not identify which agencies were at fault in implementing the scheme and instead blamed the entire Yingluck-led government for the damages, the lawyers said.

Since the pledging scheme was a policy aimed at helping farmers, the former prime minister could not be held directly responsible for the damages, they added.

Yingluck’s lawsuit against Jirachai was dismissed on June 10 but the Appeals Court has not set a date to hear the case.

According to the government’s committee on civil liability, the rice-pledging scheme resulted in losses of more than Bt500 billion due to the high prices set by the government to buy rice from farmers, even though the global market price was significantly lower.

There was not a limit on the quantity of rice the government would buy so farmers were encouraged to grow as much as they could, which resulted in losses for taxpayers.