mumbai mumbaibased realty major lodha group had been charging customers for car parking space a practice now declared illegal by courts sources in the incometax department saidit officials who raided the lodha group offices and residential premises of senior executives of the group last week acted on a tip off that payment for car parking space was made in cash therefore when the it officials confronted lodha officials with evidence of receiving payments in cash the group admitted to unaccounted cash receipts of 200 crorea significant portion of the cash seizure was made after opening bank lockers some of which are in the names of the companys employees the it sleuths also seized cash of 8 crore from the groups premisesaccording to a supreme court verdict in 2010 a developer of a housing complex cannot charge members for parking space the ruling said the developers cannot sell open spaces and stilt areas in their buildings as these are meant for common use and form part of the flats it officials are examining how many of the car parking spaces were sold before the supreme court verdictwe have no comments to make on this issue abhishek lodha managing director of the group told et established in 1980 by mangal prabhat lodha bjp mla from the malabar hill constutuency lodha developers has projects mainly in and around mumbai and has a land bank of around 250 million sq ft currently it has around 38 projects spread over 30 million sq ft under construction his two sons who are directors of the realty company now run the companythe realtor emerged the highest bidder in the biggestever land deal in the city at an auction held by the mumbai metropolitan region development authority in july last year lodha developers had bid 4050 crore to lease a 25000sq mt plot for 65 years mmrda also offered the right to construct up to 495000 sq mt almost 20 times the plot area to the highest bidder lodha plans to build an interstate truck terminal which is the mmrdas requirement apart from upmarket housingthe company has also announced plan to build worlds tallest residential tower 117storey and 450meter tall world one on 17acre plot of defunct shrinivas mill at lower parel in central mumbai with proposed investment of around 2000 crore in september 2009 lodha developers had filed papers with securities and exchange board of india for initial public offer worth around 2800 crore