Section 150: Acting on a benefit taken before appointment
Statutory text (Thai original)
ผู้ใดเป็นเจ้าพนักงาน กระทำการหรือไม่กระทำการอย่างใดในตำแหน่งโดยเห็นแก่ทรัพย์สินหรือประโยชน์อื่นใด ซึ่งตนได้เรียก รับ หรือยอมจะรับไว้ก่อนที่ตนได้รับแต่งตั้งเป็นเจ้าพนักงานในตำแหน่งนั้น ต้องระวางโทษจำคุกตั้งแต่ห้าปีถึงยี่สิบปี หรือจำคุกตลอดชีวิต และปรับตั้งแต่หนึ่งแสนบาทถึงสี่แสนบาท หมายเหตุ: [อัตราโทษ แก้ไขเพิ่มเติมโดยมาตรา ๗ แห่งพระราชบัญญัติแก้ไขเพิ่มเติมประมวลกฎหมายอาญา (ฉบับที่ ๒๖) พ.ศ. ๒๕๖๐]
English translation
Whoever, being an official, does or omits to do any act in his office in consideration of property or any other benefit which he demanded, accepted or agreed to accept before being appointed as an official in that office, shall be punished with imprisonment from five to twenty years or imprisonment for life, and a fine from one hundred thousand to four hundred thousand baht.
This English translation is provided for reference only and has not yet been firm-verified. Always rely on the Thai original.
Firm annotation
Section 150 closes a timing gap left by the bribery offence in Section 149. Section 149 targets a benefit demanded or taken while already an official; Section 150 reaches the case where the benefit was demanded, accepted or agreed to before appointment, and the official then acts on it once in office. The elements are (1) being an official, (2) doing or omitting an act of office, (3) in consideration of a benefit, (4) which was demanded, accepted or agreed to before appointment to that office. It sits within the Malfeasance in Office chapter and carries the same heavy penalty range as Section 149, short of the death penalty.
Why this matters in practice
Exposure runs from five years to life, and the offence is non-compoundable and prosecuted by the State. The defining fact is the timing of the benefit: the arrangement must predate the appointment while the act of office comes after it. Because the penalty carries a life-imprisonment ceiling, the applicable limitation period is the longest tier under the Penal Code. As with the other corruption offences in this Chapter, matters are commonly handled through the anti-corruption authorities, and repayment does not extinguish liability.
Cited in 4 Supreme Court decisions (1965 to 2011)
Selected citing decisions
- Decision 11903/2554 (2011)
- Decision 755/2512 (1969)
- Decision 1530/2508 (1965)
- Decision 1152/2521 (1978)
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
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
How does Section 150 differ from bribery under Section 149?
Section 149 covers a benefit taken while already an official; Section 150 covers a benefit demanded or accepted before appointment, acted on once in office.
What is the penalty under Section 150?
Imprisonment of five to twenty years or life, together with a fine of 100,000 to 400,000 baht.
Related guides on ThaiLawOnline
Cite this section
-
Plain citation
Penal Code, s. 150 (Thailand) -
Academic citation
Penal Code (Thailand), s. 150. ThaiLawOnline, https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-150/ (accessed 17 August 2026). -
Thai citation
ป.อ. มาตรา 150 -
Permalink
https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-150/ -
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<blockquote cite="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-150/"><p>Whoever, being an official, does or omits to do any act in his office in consideration of property or any other benefit which he demanded, accepted or agreed to accept before being appointed as an official in that office, shall be punished with imprisonment from…</p><footer>Penal Code, s. 150 (Thailand) — <a href="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-150/">ThaiLawOnline</a></footer></blockquote>
The Thai text is authoritative. The English is an unofficial translation by ThaiLawOnline, free to reuse with attribution.