In a surprising turn of events relating to Kerala’s infamous bar bribe scam, the Income Tax Department on Tuesday raided several bars in the State. Simultaneous raids were continuing even late Tuesday evening on nine bars owned by a particular group, residences of its owner and managers and the house of an industrialist based in Kollam.
The raids were based on the statements by Thiruvananthapuram-based bar owner Biju Ramesh that crores of rupees had been paid as bribe to State Finance Minister KM Mani by bar owners. The voice records of bar owners’ meetings and telephone conversations Biju had produced had also suggested transactions of huge amounts had taken place for paying bribes to Mani.
Income-Tax Department’s sleuths had last week questioned Biju Ramesh for close to five hours. They had also examined the tapes. The I-T Department’s raid on the bars and other centres are sure to put a lot of pressure on the Congress-led UDF Government in the context of the allegations that the there is a bid to sabotage the current Vigilance probe into the scam.
Raids were being held simultaneously at over 25 places including nine bars belonging to a particular business group, the house and offices of the group’s owner and houses of the managers of the bars under it and a Kollam-based industrialist, who according to Biju and the voice records had loaned money to the bar owners to be paid to Mani as bribe.
As per the voice records of the discussions at a meeting of the Kerala Bar Hotels’ Association which Biju had released to the media and handed over to the Vigilance, Mani was given Rs2 crore as bribe to ensure that the 418 bars closed for lack of facilities did not reopen. Prior to that, Mani was allegedly paid Rs1 crore to ensure that the licences of the 418 bars were renewed.
The tapes had also contained conversations which suggested that a particular bar owner, whose establishments were raided on Tuesday, had taken Rs5 crore to Mani’s house to be paid to him but the deal did not take place as the Minister was unable to make any commitment. This amount was allegedly given to the bar owner as loan by the Kollam-based industrialist.
Meanwhile, the Vigilance, which is currently probing the scam, on Tuesday asked Biju Ramesh to hand over to it the original voice records and the computer hard disk which contained the entire records of the discussions and telephone conversations which the bar owner said were proof of how Mani had been paid the bribes.