MCOT controls television and radio frequencies.

The civic groups will launch their attack against the privatisation of MCOT before moving on to PTT Plc - another privatised state enterprise, Nakorn Chomphoochart, a member of the legal team, said yesterday.

He noted that Section 40 of the Constitution stipulated that television and radio frequencies are national assets for public use. As a result, the allocation of frequencies must be done by the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), not MCOT, Nakorn said.

Though it is privatised, MCOT could face charges from the public that it is depriving them of public information, he said.

"We would need to point out that the government has abused its power in dominating public media, by transferring the frequency-allocation power to a public company even though that should be the power of the NBC," he said.

Civic groups were cheered by the Supreme Administrative Court's ruling that effectively halted Egat's privatisation.

Nakorn said the legal team views the Egat ruling as the benchmark for launching further moves. For PTT, the team will focus on the government's unfulfilled promises on the separation of the ownership of natural-gas pipelines from PTT and the deprivation of public benefits through the gas-price monopoly.

"We are tracing the facts concerning state enterprises one by one, particularly to see if they followed the Corporatisation Act step by step," he said.

The legal team was also looking for "possible conflicts of interest", he said.

Nakorn said that Olarn Chaipravat could "reappear" in the civic groups' case against PTT.

Serving as vice chairman of Shin Corp Plc, a director of PTT, and chairman of Shinawatra University, Olarn was in a conflict of interest, as these entities could potentially reap benefits from Egat's privatisation, Nakorn said.

Caretaker Energy Minister Viset Choopiban admitted that PTT had not yet transferred the pipelines to the state, but said the pipelines were in a separate account. The separation of business units would lead to a bigger corporate income tax burden, he said.

PTT had planned to separate the natural gas business, but could not do so because of power pooling, he said.

Meanwhile, Cherdpong Siriwit, permanent secretary to the Energy Ministry, said he was not put in a conflict of interest by chairing PTT.

He was appointed chairman because the ministry had to oversee energy policy for state enterprises, Cherdpong said. The person who oversees energy policy should also oversee PTT because the chairman of PTT implements the ministry's policy, he explained.

The chairman could not make a decision on his own because he had to consult with board members, who represent various agencies and PTT's management had good corporate governance, he said.

Consumer groups had the right to take a case to the Administrative Court but he believed PTT was privatised in accordance with the law and other regulations.