Section 391: Use of force without injury
Statutory text (Thai original)
ผู้ใดใช้กำลังทำร้ายผู้อื่น โดยไม่ถึงกับเป็นเหตุให้เกิดอันตรายแก่กายหรือจิตใจ ต้องระวางโทษจำคุกไม่เกินหนึ่งเดือน หรือปรับไม่เกินหนึ่งหมื่นบาท หรือทั้งจำทั้งปรับ หมายเหตุ: [อัตราโทษ แก้ไขเพิ่มเติมโดยมาตรา ๖ แห่งพระราชบัญญัติแก้ไขเพิ่มเติมประมวลกฎหมายอาญา (ฉบับที่ ๒๒) พ.ศ. ๒๕๕๘]
English translation
Whoever uses force against another person, without going so far as to cause injury to body or mind, shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding one month, or a fine not exceeding ten thousand baht, or both.
This English translation is provided for reference only and has not yet been firm-verified. Always rely on the Thai original.
Firm annotation
The elements are the use of force against another person and that the force does not reach the level of causing injury to body or mind. It is the petty-offence floor of the assault ladder: where the force does cause bodily or mental harm, the conduct becomes assault under Section 295, and where it causes grievous harm, Section 297. The dividing line from Section 295 is simply whether any injury results, so Section 391 frequently operates as the lesser offence when an assault charge fails for want of proven injury. The offence is not compoundable: every Penal Code provision that makes an offence compoundable stops at Section 366, so no petty offence in this chapter can be settled so as to extinguish the right to prosecute.
Why this matters in practice
Penalty exposure is minor, but the offence is not compoundable, so a settlement does not extinguish the right to prosecute. Compensation weighs heavily on sentence, and a complainant who will not pursue the matter usually ends the case in practice, but that is not the same as a legal right to compound. A defendant charged under Section 295 for assault should note that a court may still convict under Section 391 if the evidence does not establish actual injury, as the Supreme Court did in the decision below. For petty offences the prosecution period is short, so act promptly. See our overview of Thai criminal law.
Supreme Court decisions interpreting this section
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Supreme Court Judgment No. 2030/2568 (2025)
Striking a person's head with an axe and beating him so that he suffers injury to the body is bodily harm under Section 295, not the use of force falling short of injury under Section 391.
The three defendants trespassed into the injured person's dwelling carrying an axe, then locked his neck, held his arms, punched him and kicked his face, head and neck, the third defendant striking his head, knee and hip with the axe. The Supreme Court held that trespassing and using force immediately and continuously while the trespass was still going on could not be separated, so it was trespass by using force under Section 365 (1). It varied the judgment of the Court of Appeal Region 2 to hold that the defendants were not guilty under Section 391 read with Section 83 but were guilty under Section 295 read with Section 83.
Curated decisions with case numbers verified against the Supreme Court database. English renderings are the firm's editorial translation for study.
Cited in 194 Supreme Court decisions (1960 to 2025)
Selected citing decisions
- Decision 1872/2563 (2020)
- Decision 7136/2561 (2018)
- Decision 10129/2559 (2016)
- Decision 10915/2558 (2015)
- Decision 8310/2555 (2012)
- Decision 9650/2553 (2010)
- Decision 9244/2553 (2010)
- Decision 8192/2553 (2010)
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 83 101
- Section 295 91
- Section 91 89
- Section 78 73
- Section 90 56
- Section 29 49
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
What is the difference between Section 391 and assault under Section 295?
Section 391 applies when force is used but no injury results, while Section 295 applies when the force causes actual bodily or mental harm and carries a heavier penalty.
Can a Section 391 charge be settled between the parties?
Not so as to end the case in law. Section 391 is a petty offence and the Penal Code makes no petty offence compoundable, so a settlement does not extinguish the right to prosecute. In practice compensation weighs heavily on sentence and a complainant who will not pursue the matter usually ends the case.
Related guides on ThaiLawOnline
Cite this section
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Plain citation
Penal Code, s. 391 (Thailand) -
Academic citation
Penal Code (Thailand), s. 391. ThaiLawOnline, https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-391/ (accessed 21 August 2026). -
Thai citation
ป.อ. มาตรา 391 -
Permalink
https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-391/ -
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<blockquote cite="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-391/"><p>Whoever uses force against another person, without going so far as to cause injury to body or mind, shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding one month, or a fine not exceeding ten thousand baht, or both.</p><footer>Penal Code, s. 391 (Thailand) — <a href="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-391/">ThaiLawOnline</a></footer></blockquote>
The Thai text is authoritative. The English is an unofficial translation by ThaiLawOnline, free to reuse with attribution.