Section 53: Loss or damage of documents in a pending case file
Statutory text (Thai original)
ถ้ารายงาน คำพิพากษา คำสั่งหรือเอกสารอื่นใดที่รวมไว้ในสำนวนความซึ่งยังอยู่ในระหว่างพิจารณาหรือรอการบังคับของศาลสูญหายไป หรือบุบสลายทั้งหมดหรือแต่บางส่วน เป็นการขัดข้องต่อการชี้ขาดตัดสินหรือบังคับคดีเมื่อศาลเห็นสมควร หรือเมื่อคู่ความฝ่ายที่เกี่ยวข้องยื่นคำขอโดยทำเป็นคำร้อง ให้ศาลสั่งคู่ความหรือบุคคลผู้ถือเอกสารนั้น นำสำเนาที่รับรองถูกต้องมาส่งต่อศาล ถ้าหากสำเนาเช่นว่านั้นทั้งหมดหรือบางส่วนหาไม่ได้ ให้ศาลมีคำสั่งให้พิจารณาคดีนั้นใหม่ หรือมีคำสั่งอย่างอื่นตามที่เห็นสมควร เพื่อประโยชน์แห่งความยุติธรรม
English translation
If a record, a judgment, an order, or any other document included in a case file that is still under trial or awaiting enforcement by the court is lost, or is damaged in whole or in part, so as to obstruct the adjudication or the enforcement of the case, the court, when it thinks fit or upon the application of the party concerned made by motion, shall order the party or the person holding that document to submit a duly certified copy to the court. If such a copy cannot be obtained in whole or in part, the court shall order the case to be tried again, or shall make such other order as it thinks fit in the interests of justice.
ThaiLawOnline translation, written from the Thai original and verified
Firm annotation
Section 53 addresses the practical problem of a broken record. Three elements are required: the document must be part of a case file still under trial or awaiting enforcement, it must be lost or damaged in whole or in part, and the loss must obstruct adjudication or enforcement. A document lost after the file has passed to the Ministry of Justice under Section 52 is outside this Section. The court may act of its own motion when it thinks fit, or on the application of the party concerned, which must be made by motion. The primary remedy is reconstruction by certified copy, and the person ordered to produce it need not be a party; the Section reaches any person holding the document. Only where reconstruction fails, wholly or partly, does the court reach the fallback, which is expressed as a broad discretion: a retrial, or any other order in the interests of justice.
Why this matters in practice
This is the provision to cite where a court file is incomplete, which is not rare in older matters or after a transfer between courts. Two points are worth knowing. The application is by motion and can be made by the party affected rather than waiting for the court to notice, and preserving your own certified copies is what makes the primary remedy available: a party who holds certified copies of the pleadings and exhibits can reconstruct the file, while a party who holds nothing is exposed to a retrial ordered under the fallback limb. That is a practical reason to obtain certified copies under Section 54 as a matter of routine rather than only when a dispute arises.
Supreme Court decisions interpreting this section
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Supreme Court Judgment No. 193/2537 (1994)
Section 53 applies only where a document that is actually part of the case file is lost or damaged so as to obstruct the adjudication or enforcement of the case. It cannot be invoked to obtain a retrial in a case already decided, nor where the evidence lies in a separate file that was ordered joined but never actually joined.
Evidence lay in another case file that the trial court had ordered joined but which had not yet been joined. The Supreme Court held this was not a case of a document in the file being lost or damaged in whole or in part, and since both lower courts had already decided the case there was no obstruction to adjudication, so section 53 could not be used to ask the appellate court to try the case anew.
Curated decisions with case numbers verified against the Supreme Court database. English renderings are the firm's editorial translation for study.
Cited in 3 Supreme Court decisions (1994 to 2015)
Selected citing decisions
- Decision 13598/2558 (2015)
- Decision 867/2548 (2005)
- Decision 193/2537 (1994)
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.
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
What happens if court documents in my case are lost?
Under section 53, if a document in an active file is lost or damaged so as to obstruct the case, the court can order the party or holder to submit a certified true copy. If no copy exists, the court may order a new trial or another suitable order.
Can I reopen a finished case by claiming a document went missing?
No. Section 53 applies only to files that are still under trial or awaiting enforcement, where the loss obstructs the case. It cannot be used to retry a case that has already become final.
Related guides on ThaiLawOnline
Cite this section
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Plain citation
Civil Procedure Code, s. 53 (Thailand) -
Academic citation
Civil Procedure Code (Thailand), s. 53. ThaiLawOnline, https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-procedure-code/section-53/ (accessed 11 August 2026). -
Thai citation
ป.วิ.พ. มาตรา 53 -
Permalink
https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-procedure-code/section-53/ -
Embed on your site
<blockquote cite="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-procedure-code/section-53/"><p>If a record, a judgment, an order, or any other document included in a case file that is still under trial or awaiting enforcement by the court is lost, or is damaged in whole or in part, so as to obstruct the adjudication or the…</p><footer>Civil Procedure Code, s. 53 (Thailand) — <a href="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-procedure-code/section-53/">ThaiLawOnline</a></footer></blockquote>
The Thai text is authoritative. The English is an unofficial translation by ThaiLawOnline, free to reuse with attribution.