THIRUVANANTHAPURAM/KOCHI: Two bar owners raided by the income tax (I-T) department last Tuesday reportedly admitted to I-T sleuths that they had contributed funds which were eventually paid as alleged bribe to state finance minister K M Mani for obtaining certain favours from the government.

This corroborates the statement of Bar Hotel Owners Association working president Biju Ramesh who had publicly announced that he had submitted all relevant details to I-T sleuths during his questioning regarding the bribe paid.

I-T had raided 10 bars mostly owned by Binoy Joseph and Ajit C Nair based on information that they had concealed sales income. Officials said that the focus of their probe is to recover tax and not take up the bribe issue and reiterated that intelligence gathering had started almost a year ago.

Meanwhile, Kollam businessman Sunil Swami - who allegedly loaned Rs 3.5 crore to one of the bar owners' association's office bearers - surprised the income tax department with his collection of 28 high-end cars, a palatial bungalow and a farm house. He will have to cough up wealth tax, officials said.

Swami has denied any involvement in the bribe scandal but admitted granting a loan to one of his bar owner friends, another official added.

Assets like cars and jewellery attract wealth tax if the value is over Rs 30 lakh officials said. "But his (Swami's) sadhu lifestyle and wealth amassed do not match. He is cooperating in the probe. We will question him again," the official said.

Binoy and Ajit reportedly provided details of payments made at various stages to the minister. The duo and their wives are partners in two bars while the remaining eight bars across the state has other shareholders. The concealment is around Rs 15 crore and may rise once the scrutiny of the documents is over. "A 15 crore concealment would attract a tax of Rs 4.5 crore in addition to the penalty," an official said. The daily sales of these bars used to be sent by the managers as text messages. Officials said they have recovered some of the data for the past six months.

"We can take up for scrutiny the annual returns filed for the past six years. We are not sure whether the details would be available," an official said. At one of the bars, the officials recovered documents from a room in the hotel almost a day after the raid.

The occupancy rate at most of the hotels was nil indicating that the partners opened hotels only to obtain a three-star classification that allows them to run bars.