Section 197: Definition of default of answer
Statutory text (Thai original)
เมื่อจำเลยได้รับหมายเรียกให้ยื่นคำให้การแล้ว จำเลยมิได้ยื่นคำให้การภายในระยะเวลาที่กำหนดไว้ตามกฎหมายหรือตามคำสั่งศาล ให้ถือว่าจำเลยขาดนัดยื่นคำให้การ
English translation
When the defendant has received a summons to file an answer but has not filed an answer within the period prescribed by law or by order of the court, the defendant shall be deemed to be in default of answer.
This English translation is provided for reference only and has not yet been firm-verified. Always rely on the Thai original.
Firm annotation
Section 197 opens Part 1 on default of answer by defining exactly when a defendant is in default: service of the summons plus failure to file an answer within the legal or court-ordered period. The definition is deliberately mechanical, it turns on the missed deadline, not on fault, and it is the precondition for the plaintiff's application under Section 198 and the merit-based default judgment under Section 198 bis. Note that these ordinary-case default rules do not apply to small claims, which have their own default regime under Sections 193 and 193 bis. The term applies to any party who must file an answer, so a plaintiff who fails to answer a counterclaim or an interpleader claim can also be in default under this Section.
Why this matters in practice
The deadline to answer is strict: once the summons is validly served, the clock runs, and missing it puts you in default, whether or not you meant to. If you have been served, do not wait; file an answer or get a lawyer at once, because default opens the door to judgment against you with only limited ways back. If you are unsure whether service was valid, that is a point to raise early, not after judgment.
Supreme Court decisions interpreting this section
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Supreme Court Judgment No. 10840/2558 (2015)
Section 197 defines default of answer as the defendant's failure to file an answer within the prescribed period after being served with a summons, and it works together with Section 198 on the plaintiff's ensuing application; a special court may have its own default rule that operates differently.
The Supreme Court compared the default rule of the Central Intellectual Property and International Trade Court, under which the court declares default at once, with Section 197 of the Civil Procedure Code, quoting the section's definition and its link to the plaintiff's fifteen-day application under Section 198.
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Supreme Court Judgment No. 5336/2551 (2008)
Section 197 applies to any party required to file an answer, so a party who is served but fails to file within the deadline is in default of answer, and the opposing party must then apply to the court within fifteen days to win by default, failing which the case is struck off.
In an interpleader dispute, the party required to answer was served but filed nothing by the deadline and was therefore in default of answer under Section 197. Because the claimant then failed to apply within fifteen days, the trial court struck the case off, a step the Supreme Court examined for legality.
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Supreme Court Judgment No. 15018/2551 (2008)
Because small claims cases have their own default of answer rules under Sections 193 and 193 bis, the ordinary case default rules in Sections 197 and 198 cannot be applied to them, so a small claims plaintiff need not file the Section 198 application on the defendant's default.
The Supreme Court held that the specific small claims default rules displace Sections 197 and 198, so when a small claims defendant defaults the plaintiff is not required to make the ordinary application under Section 198 paragraph two for a default judgment.
Curated decisions with case numbers verified against the Supreme Court database. English renderings are the firm's editorial translation for study.
Cited in 56 Supreme Court decisions (1950 to 2015)
Selected citing decisions
- Decision 15018/2551 (2008)
- Decision 5336/2551 (2008)
- Decision 5600/2548 (2005)
- Decision 9101/2547 (2004)
- Decision 3388/2545 (2002)
- Decision 4340-4341/2545 (2002)
- Decision 8599/2544 (2001)
- Decision 5779/2540 (1997)
This list is selected automatically, weighted towards judgments that turn on this section rather than ones that merely recite it when passing sentence. It has not yet been reviewed by the firm.
Most often cited alongside
- Section 201 13
- Section 202 11
- Section 198 9
- Section 199 8
- Section 207 8
- Section 1 7
Sections that appear in the same judgments as this one most often. The figure is the number of decisions.
Counted across the firm's corpus of 83,652 Supreme Court decisions, 1921 to 2026. The count is complete; the stated year range trims rare outliers so it describes where the citations actually sit. These figures are computed by us and are not official court statistics. How we count these, and what we measured
Frequently asked questions
When is a defendant in default of answer in Thailand?
Under Section 197, a defendant is in default of answer once he has been served with a summons to answer but fails to file an answer within the period fixed by law or by the court.
Does default of answer under Section 197 apply to small claims cases?
No. Small claims have their own default rules under Sections 193 and 193 bis, so the ordinary default of answer regime in Sections 197 and 198 does not apply to them.
Related guides on ThaiLawOnline
Cite this section
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Plain citation
Civil Procedure Code, s. 197 (Thailand) -
Academic citation
Civil Procedure Code (Thailand), s. 197. ThaiLawOnline, https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-procedure-code/section-197/ (accessed 11 August 2026). -
Thai citation
ป.วิ.พ. มาตรา 197 -
Permalink
https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-procedure-code/section-197/ -
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<blockquote cite="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-procedure-code/section-197/"><p>When the defendant has received a summons to file an answer but has not filed an answer within the period prescribed by law or by order of the court, the defendant shall be deemed to be in default of answer.</p><footer>Civil Procedure Code, s. 197 (Thailand) — <a href="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-procedure-code/section-197/">ThaiLawOnline</a></footer></blockquote>
The Thai text is authoritative. The English is an unofficial translation by ThaiLawOnline, free to reuse with attribution.