DSI probe into six Sirinart NP land cases well advanced

DSI deputy chief Pong-in Intharakha will visit the area to follow the probe progress as well as inspect some other plots that might be taken up by DSI later.

DSI’s Consumer Protection and Environment Office chief Prawut Wongsrinil said DSI investigators in the six cases were also waiting for information from agencies such as the Land Development Department and Forestry Department because some of these lands overlapped forest reserves and national park areas. They were waiting on forensic results of officials’ signature authentication on land-rights documents before concluding the cases for further legal action, he added.

Prawut also commented about land-rights document applications by 23 persons covering 110 plots. The Land Department had so far issued documents to 16 persons and DSI had already inspected seven others pending the issuance.

The DSI’s probe also covered the case of an abandoned hotel on land belonging to a local woman who held a two-rai plot under the Sor Khor 1 document since 1955 – prior to the park area declaration in 1997. The plot had been given right to be excluded from the park. It had been granted a Nor Sor 3 Kor document, a step closer to being a land title deed, in 1987 on request of the woman's son who more space into it making it totaled three rais. Her other son, later had his sibling ask for the Nor Sor 3 Kor document to cover two additional rais, which reportedly overlapped the park and were beyond what was allowed in the original Sor Khor 1 paper, according to Prawut.

A source at the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry yesterday said the ministry learned last month about the Land Department committee’s resolution last September that two documents to the afore-mentioned woman’s sons were legal and didn’t need to be revoked. The ministry’s national parks department and DSI were gathering evidence to argue against that resolution, claiming the land beyond the family’s Sor Khor 1 documented territory was a steep hill. The land was later sold to a property developer. The source also said the property developer allegedly occupied almost 10 rais in the area, not five rai as stated in the land-rights document.