the appellants also claimed that in view of various letters adA dressed to various Banks,the said distillery could not be commenced as scheduled in May, 1986 and as a result thereof, the appellants suffered heavy loss. Accordingly, in the written statement, a counter claim of Rs.52 lakhs was made against the original plaintiff/respondent. The said written statement was, B however, filed on 17th of June, 1987. The counter claim of the appellants was based on a notice of the learned counsel dated 23rd of October, 1986. In 2000, i.e., after thirteen and a half years, the appellants filed an application for amendment of the written statement and the counter claim seeking enhanced amount. In c the application for amendment, the appellants had alleged that as they were suffering loss of Rs. 20,000/- per day from the month of June, 1987, when the original written statement was filed, the counter claim was made only upto to the date of filing of the written statement and by seeking an amendment of the D same, they were only claiming a sum of,Rs.20,000/- per day from June, 1986 till November, 2000 which would be less than Rs.25 lakhs. This application for amendment of the written statement and the counter claim, filed by the appellants, was opposed by the original plaintiff/respondent on the ground that the E prayer for amendment of the written statement and the counter claim was clearly barred by the law of limitation. The trial court '·by its order dated 5thof February, 2001 came to the conclusion that as the cause of action arose in 1986, the prayer for amendment of the written statement and the counter claim for enhanced damages, as noted herein earlier, was clearly ex facie barred F by the law of limitation. Accordingly, the trial court rejected the application for amendment of the written statement and the ·counter claim filed by the appellants and aggrieved by the aforesaid order of rejection, a writ petition being W.P.No.463/2003 was filed at the instance of the appellants which was also reG jected by the impugned order of the learned Judge of the High Court against which a special leave petition was filed and on grant of leave, the same was heard in presence of the learned counsel for the parties.
