THE SANGHA Supreme Council (SSC) has no power to disrobe controversial former abbot Phra Dhammachayo as that authority belongs to his direct monastic supervisors, it was concluded at the council’s meeting yesterday.

Meanwhile, following a 23-day stand-off, the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) is going to seek to lift the designation of the fugitive monk’s Dhammakaya Temple as a controlled area, after searches of its compound proved fruitless, DSI director general Paisit Wongmuang said.

Authorities yesterday ended the operation to search the sprawling temple complex in Pathum Thani.

Yesterday’s decision by the SSC was in response to a complaint filed by the National Office of Buddhism (NOB) against the monk, who is now honorary abbot of Dhammakaya Temple and wanted by authorities for alleged money laundering and accepting stolen assets.

The NOB then requested the SSC deal with Dhammachayo through its rule No 21 that empowers monastic supervisors to defrock any monk who regularly violates the Vinaya (monastic rules) or does not reside in a temple, the office’s newly appointed director Pongpon Pramsaneh told a press conference after the meeting.

Pongpon, who is the SSC secretary-general ex-officio, said his agency had requested in writing that the monastic chief of the central region, which had jurisdiction over Wat Dhammakaya, should investigate the complaint against Dhammachayo.

“The disrobing process is not easy. The Sangha Supreme Council has no power to do so,” he told the media briefing at the Buddha Monthon Religious Complex in Nakhon Pathom province.

Pongpon said that by filing a complaint with the monastic body, his agency just started the monastic action against Dhammachayo.

He said the process called for the monastic chief of the central region to refer Dhammachayo’s case to the abbot of his temple through the line of command. The abbot needs to consider the complaint against Dhammachayo and allow him to explain himself, he added.

According to SSC rule No 21, Dhammachayo will be deemed to waive his right if he fails to explain himself in relation to the complaint. Then disciplinary action can be taken against him, the official said.

However, he declined to speculate as to when the monastic disciplinary process would be completed as that was a matter for the monks dealing with it.

“This is the same way that you cannot ask a judge when he or she will make a verdict,” he told the press conference. Respected monk Phra Paisal Visalo, a temple abbot in Chaiyaphum, expressed concern over the possible intervention in the monastic disciplinary process against Dhammachayo.

‘How do you stop intervention?’

“We know well that Dhammachayo has a lot of influence, in the Sangha Supreme Council and in the Central monastic region. What should be done to prevent intervention into the monastic court?” he told Thai PBS.

The monk said the monastic disciplinary procedures against Dhammachayo in the past “went nowhere” due to intervention and legal tactics.

“I suspect this new case in 2017 may end in the same way,” he added.

Over the past 23 days, the DSI, other police and the military have been involved in a stand-off with Dhammakaya monks and the temple’s followers.

It came after Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, in his capacity as the junta head, issued an order declaring the temple compound a controlled area for an operation to arrest Dhammachayo.

The ex-abbot has refused to turn himself in for more than a year despite repeated summonses and warrants issued for his arrest.

Paisit, the DSI chief, said the temple had cooperated with authorities over the past 23 days. When things return to normal, the DSI will request that the justice minister lift the designation of the temple being a controlled area, he said.

However, he added that the junta order issued under Article 44 of the interim charter would remain intact until then.

“We did not see Dhammachayo in the temple [yesterday] so we consider him a fugitive. The relevant authorities will attempt to arrest him later,” Paisit said, adding that officials will still be stationed near the temple.

He noted that the warrants for Dhammachayo’s arrest expire in 15 years.

The DSI will work with immigration police in the attempt to locate the monk, Paisit said, adding that the monk has not left the country through any immigration points.

Dhammakaya monks and followers yesterday ended their demonstration at a market next to the temple and agreed to remove obstacles placed inside and around the vast complex.

The employment is intended to deter farmers from growing rice outside the farming season, which may subject them to a water shortage and financial losses later.

The department’s director-general Sanchai Ketworrachai said yesterday that farmers could be hired for the construction of small irrigation projects and removing weeds to better manage water sources.

“In this current fiscal year, we have already hired 41,184 farmers across the country,” Sanchai said. “We can hire many more”.

Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister General Chatchai Sarikalya yesterday demanded a strict ban on the third round of rice growing.

“It must be banned even in irrigation zones,” Chatchai said during his visit to Chai Nat province.

Each round of rice growing takes about 100 days to yield crops. Authorities have been trying to encourage farmers to grow rice only during the rainy season to avoid the risk of water shortage.

According to Chatchai, farmers in the Chao Phraya River Basin have already engaged in the second round of rice growing and they will be able to harvest soon.

“But we have no plan to irrigate water for them for the third round of rice growing. So, do not grow rice after the end of the second round,” he said.

As of Thursday, 34 major dams in Thailand had almost 20 billion cubic metres of disposable water. Although the volume is much larger than the same period last year, there is still a risk that many areas beyond irrigation zones will face a water shortage.

It is estimated that 105 districts in 34 provinces across Thailand could face water shortages.

Chatchai said that although rice farmers were discouraged from growing rice during some periods of the year, they could grow other types of crops, such as peanuts.

“Peanut farmland can yield a profit of between Bt2,500 and Bt3,000 per rai,” he said.

He added that growing just rice throughout the year could weaken soil, so it was better for farmers to consider growing some other plants during the dry season.

SACKED Palace official and former top police officer Jumpol Manmai was sentenced to three years in jail yesterday for abuse of authority and forest encroachment.

Jumpol, 66, pleaded guilty at the Nakhon Ratchasima Provincial Court.

With his head shaven, he appeared in court wearing a brown inmate uniform and expressed an intention to not fight the charges. He did not seek the help of a lawyer.

The conviction related to a resort home he had built in the Thap Lan National Park.

Due to his confession, the court commuted a six-year jail term to just three years.

Jumpol was also ordered to have the resort home demolished and to pay more than Bt892,000 in compensation to the state.

After the verdict was delivered, he was taken to Bangkok Remand Prison.

An announcement in the Royal Gazette on March 7 said Jumpol was stripped of all royal decorations and his police-general rank on February 27.

Before the scandal broke last month, Jumpol boasted an impressive career. He retired from the police force after rising to be a deputy national commissioner. He was also the Royal Household Bureau’s Grand Chamberlain for security and special affairs.

Soon after the allegations against him started swirling, he was removed from his post at the Royal Household Bureau for grave |misconduct.

Jumpol was not the only high-profile figure facing action in the forest-encroachment case. Provincial Police Region 5 deputy commissioner Pol Maj General Pongdej Prommichit faces the same charges, but he has denied all charges.

Because Pongdej is contesting the charges, the court resolved to separate his case from that of Jumpol.

Pongdej will be arraigned within seven days, officials said.

Deputy National Police Commissioner Pol General Srivara Ransibrahmanakul revealed yesterday that police investigators also recommended prosecuting five other suspects – including Jumpol’s wife and Pongdej’s wife – in the case involving Jumpol’s resort home that encroached on state forestland.

Yuwadee – known among reporters as ‘Jae Yu’ (‘Older Sister’) – succumbed to internal bleeding, which deprived her of oxygen to the brain and her kidneys failed.

The veteran news lady was admitted to the intensive care unit at Phramongkutklao Hospital last Friday, after falling ill. A reporter in the field for almost 50 years, she was 71.

Yuwadee’s funeral will be held from tomorrow till March 17 at Soamanas Temple, with a royal-sponsored cremation to take place on March 19. She is survived by her husband, General Sirichai Tunyasiri, a former permanent secretary to the Defence Ministry, and their son.

Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam, who was secretary-general of Cabinet for several governments, said he was helped by Yuwadee when he was appointed deputy premier in the Thaksin and Prayut governments. Yuwadee was a bridge linking governments and junior reporters, he said, helping communications and making both sides understand each other better.

Deputy Premier Prawit Wongsuwan said: “I want to offer my condolences |to her family. It’s a great pity to lose her. She contributed so much to the |country.”

Journalists and veterans of various generations also expressed their grief.

“A sharp tongue with kind heart,” is how Khao Sod’s senior journalist Sumontha Boonkhum described her.

“She was always on the front whenever there was an issue at Government House. She might also be loud and straightforward, a bit scary to young journalists. But she never had ill-intentions to anyone,” Sumontha said of Yuwadee.

Her colleague on the political beat and editor-turned-charter-drafter Pattara Khumphitak said: “She was living proof that honest work can give one obvious honour. Not all seniors are generous and respectful to other workers regardless of their ages, but she was.”

Yuwadee left a legacy as a straightforward journalist who constantly |questioned officials and ministers from more than 20 governments she saw through her career.

Her reporting career started in 1968 at the then-Bangkok World newspaper, which offered her a permanent job after she left Thammasat University. The publication was later purchased by the Bangkok Post, where she served as a field reporter until her retirement.

“The journalists’ image wasn’t so good back then, I have to say. I often got asked: ‘Are you going to be one of those journalists, sitting on stairs?’” she said in an interview last year with the Thai Journalists Association |(TJA). “Adventure loving as I was, |I gave it a go.”

A journalist’s life back then was not easy, Yuwadee often said. With no portable telephone or computer, she made dozens of trips between reporting assignments and her office to type the news on paper. Conditions improved with successive, more democratic governments and a pressroom, nicknamed “Sparrows’ nest”, was built to facilitate journalists including Yuwadee.

From the “Sparrows’ nest”, which has now expanded to three, she observed one coup after another. The latest was in 2014 by junta head General Prayut Chan-o-cha, who also became premier.

It was also during Prayut’s ruling that Yuwadee was, for the first time, banned from entering Government House last November, given to her lack of affiliation. Since then, she had used the TJA office as an alternate workplace.

“It’s a pity that journalists nowadays tend to do less investigative reports and more routine ones,” she said in a later interview. “The main tasks of journalists are to report facts and scrutinise what can go wrong.”

The meeting will be held in a couple of weeks to discuss a legal hurdle in which Uber claims it cannot register as public transportation because Thai laws are outdated, Pichit said.

The response came after Uber issued a statement on Thursday calling on the public to sign a petition to support its service.

In its statement, Uber insisted it is not a taxi service, but a ride-sharing service.

The statement said that since the service arrived in Thailand in 2014, it has continuously engaged with the Department of Land Transport (DLT) to clarify that it is not a taxi service but an entirely new type of service called ride-sharing.

It said there are currently no existing Thai regulations that recognise ride-sharing services provided by smartphone applications.

The technology that enables ride-sharing is different from existing public transportation, which is why Uber cannot register as public transport, the statement said.

“We are committed to continuing dialogue with DLT authorities to explain what Uber is; but we believe it is time to amend the existing legal framework to accommodate this much needed new technology and realise the full benefits it is bringing to riders, drivers and cities,” it said.

However, Pichit stood firm that the ministry will not change or adjust any laws or regulations for any particular group or individual.

He insisted that using privately owned cars as taxis through its app was definitely illegal.

“If Uber wants to offer taxi services in Thailand it needs to abide by the law and regulations of DLT”, Pichit said.

In its statement, Uber said it hoped Thailand would be able to embrace ride-sharing as other countries in the region have, including Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines.

Uber also invited the public to support its “ridesharing” by participating in a petition at https://action.uber.org/th/