At first sight, Sattra Toa-on  looks just like the young guy next door. Yet, he made news headlines last month by taking state officials to court

for dereliction of duty over the sale of

Shin Corp.

The 28-year-old junior law lecturer at Rangsit University argued that the deal seriously damaged the interests of the Thai public and consumers, and accused officials at various government agencies of negligence in this regard.

The Central Administrative Court agreed to hear the case last month.

Sattra also told the court that the Bt73-billion sale of Shin Corp to Temasek Holdings of Singapore violated at least four laws - Article 39 and Article 40 of the 1997 charter, the Foreign Business Act and the National Telecom Commission law.

In essence, he argued that the licences of iTV, Shin Satellite Plc and Advanced Info Service (AIS), now held by Temasek, are no longer valid because the Singaporean firm's direct and indirect shareholdings in these businesses has topped 96 per cent, far exceeding the legal limit of 49 per cent.

Chatting over a tall glass of iced coffee at a cafe in Bangkok's Siam Discovery shopping complex, Sattra said the Shin-Temasek deal in January, which proved to be the final straw for opponents of former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, was really bad for Thailand.

"I'm sad that some poo yais (elders) in this country have failed to protect national interests," he said.

"Personally, I believe that globalisation, especially globalised capital, is not good for the country when it is extreme.

"Worse is that Thaksin, for instance, even joined forces with these globalised capitalists to damage our public interests [when his family sold their majority stake in Shin Corp to the Singaporeans]."

A lecturer for the past three years, Sattra earned his master's in law from Thammasat University and became a barrister-at-law in 2003. His speciality is administrative law and concession contracts.

 "As a lecturer, I need to do my homework before classes, so I did a lot of research into the concession contracts and licences of iTV, Shin Sat and AIS. All these are scarce national resources that have strategic importance for our country.

"Looking closer, you'll see that they're 'soft' powers, because these businesses are all information-based - be it mobile phones [more than 17 million users for AIS], or satellites [whose systems may contain national intelligence data] or iTV, which operates a national TV network," Sattra said.

"The danger is that Thai people could be turned into pure consumers of all these key national services whose policies, contents and menus could be easily manipulated by foreigners. They might even use these so-called soft powers to influence our public policies in the future," he warned.

"Overall, it's the negative side of globalisation, whose forces are leading our economy to be more capitalistic and our society to be more consumerist. I think His Majesty the King's initiatives on sufficiency economy are an alternative to the excesses of globalisation."

Sattra isn't a novice at taking on former premier Thaksin. Back in 2001 when he was still studying for his degree at Thammasat, Sattra was involved in the assets-concealment case, in which Thaksin was narrowly acquitted by the Constitution Court.

"We didn't strictly follow the rule of law in that case," Sattra said, pointing out that other politicians were found guilty in similar cases but Thaksin wasn't.

In February this year, Sattra joined the anti-Thaksin People's Alliance for Democracy to campaign for his ouster. The following month, he filed his first lawsuit against the Shin-Temasek deal in the Central Administrative Court, but the case was dismissed on the ground that he wasn't directly affected by the deal.

He then lodged an appeal with the Supreme Administrative Court on the ground that state officials' dereliction of duty in overseeing this transaction had seriously damaged public and consumer interests. As a result, the lower court was ordered to take up the case.

Legal pundits believe that the case now has three key points of contention.

First, the deal failed to comply with the Foreign Business Act as far as the use of nominees is concerned.

Second, proper administrative procedures were not followed in this transaction. For instance, there was no prior approval of the deal from the National Telecommunications Commission, which has regulatory powers.

Third, key elements of the concession contracts between the state and the private sector governing iTV, Shin Sat and AIS were violated after the majority stake of Shin Corp was sold.

About himself, Sattra said: "I might be somewhat atypical for my age. I'm a bit hardened by my growing up, since I left my family and hometown of Sing Buri for a Buddhist

temple when I was only six.

"During my teens, I wasn't the activist type either. In fact, I didn't join any such activities at Thammasat during my years there. I preferred reading on my own and observing life, urban and rural, and studying law.

"At Thammasat, I was given many opportunities to advance my skills under the guidance of Ajarn Suraphol Nittikraipot [now the university president]," Sattra recalled. "I once gave legal counsel to a university janitor who was asked by the administrative staff to pay more than Bt20,000 for a stolen computer. It wasn't his fault but the staff insisted they had to take legal action against him. In the end, the demand was dropped. Fairness must prevail."

Now Sattra has taken his desire to see fairness prevail from an individual case to a national cause.

Nophakhun Limsamarnphun,

Somroutai Sapsomboon