Judgment

Tarun Chatterjee, J. —

1. Leave granted.

2. This appeal is directed against the Judgment and Order dated 20th of October, 2006 passed by the High Court of Bombay at Goa in Writ Petition No.463 of 2003 whereby the High Court had affirmed the Order of the trial court dated 5th of February, 2001 by which the trial court had rejected the application for amendment of written statement and the counter claim of the defendants/appellants.

3. The facts leading to the filing of this appeal are stated in a nutshell :-

Prabhakar Gajanan Naik has filed a suit for dissolution of partnership firm wherein the appellant No.1, being defendant No.1 in the suit, was the partnership firm and the appellant No.2, who is defendant No. 4, was a partner of the said firm. In the said suit for dissolution of partnership, the appellants by their written statement disputed the existence of such partnership and had taken a plea that by way of a family arrangement, the defendants/appellants were allowed to carry on the business of setting up South Konkan Distilleries. In their written statement, the appellants also claimed that in view of various letters addressed to various Banks,the said distillery could no