Thai junta chief Prayuth Chan-ocha said he was ready to step in and resolve a fourth generation (4G) mobile licence dispute by using a law critics have strongly derided.

Last month Thailand's Jasmine International Pcl forfeited a telecoms licence it won in an auction in December after missing the deadline for an initial payment towards the 75.7 billion baht ($2.1 billion) fee.

Following the missed payment, the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission said it would re-auction the 900MHz spectrum in June.

But the telecoms regulator said that Thailand's largest mobile operator Advance Info Service (AIS) has asked the junta to intervene and award it the 4G licence at the winning price of $2.1 billion.

"If necessary I am ready to use Section 44 according to the proposal by Advance Info Service Pcl which asked to receive the licence from Jasmine," Prayuth told reporters.

"If there is no damage done we should do this for the good of the country because Section 44 is not only around to deal with criminality," he said.

"We have to let the legal side see if this can be done."

AIS was pipped to the post by Jasmine in the marathon December licence auction which saw True Corp, Thailand's largest fully-integrated telecoms service provider, and Jasmine win the auction for two 4G spectrum licences.

Section 44, which gives Prayuth the authority to issue orders based on national security interests, was invoked by the junta in 2015 to replace martial law, which was imposed just days before a May 2014 bloodless coup by the army.

Critics have dubbed it the dictator law. The law allows the detention of suspects without charge for seven days, among other things.

Critics say Prayuth is relying increasingly on the security measure to push through unpopular policies and projects.

Thailand's telecoms regulator ruled that True Move, a unit of True Corp, was not eligible to bid in the June 4G licence auction.