A former reform councillor on Monday asked the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) to investigate supreme patriarch nominee Somdet Chuang for alleged dereliction of duty and corruption.
Paiboon Nititawan, ex-chairman of the defunct National Reform Council's committee on religious affairs, joined by Mano Laohawanit, a lecturer with the Faculty of Medicine at Thammasat University, filed their petition at the department's headquarters in Bangkok.
Mr Paiboon said that he suspected Somdet Phra Maha Ratchamangalacharn, better known as Somdet Chuang, of protecting Phra Dhammachayo, abbot of Wat Phra Dhammakaya, from being defrocked, an action that could be considered dereliction of duty.
Somdet Chuang, 90, is the chairman of the Sangha Supreme Council (SSC) and the supreme patriarch nominee whose nomination is under consideration by the government.
Mr Paiboon said that the SSC had failed to follow a suggestion by the late supreme patriarch that Phra Dhammachayo be defrocked and, since then, had refused to consider an embezzlement complaint brought against him.
The complaint was brought by Somporn Thepsittha, former president of the Young Buddhists Association of Thailand, and Manop Pholphairin, former specialist of the Department of Religious Affairs. The SSC recently refused to consider the complaint after it was withdrawn before a hearing. Mr Paiboon questioned the circumstances surrounding the withdrawal.
In the earlier matter, late supreme patriarch Somdet Phra Nyanasamvara wrote a letter to the SSC in 1999 to recommend Phra Dhammachayo be defrocked for violating the monks' code of conduct by putting assets, including 1,500 rai of land that belonged to Wat Phra Dhammakaya, in his name.
There had been attempts by the SSC to treat the late supreme patriarch's letter and the later complaint as the same matter, Mr Paiboon said.
Mr Paiboon said that the DSI should also find out whether Somdet Chuang was corrupt because he had received money from Phra Dhammachayo at approximately the same time as when Supachai Srisupa-aksorn, former chairman of the Klongchan Credit Union Cooperative, allegedly embezzled money from the cooperative.
Mr Supachai who is also a former treasurer of Wat Phra Dhammakaya. Mr Paiboon also said that the DSI was investigating donations from the cooperative to Phra Dhammachayo.
Pol Maj Woranan Srilam, the DSI's director of special case management, said the agency would consider the complaint, as it presented a new issue, and that the DSI was also waiting for a letter from the SSC on its recent resolution concerning Phra Dhammachayo.
