Modification of notes or orders

16. Modification of notes or orders - (i) Senior officers should not require any modification in, or replacement of, the notes recorded by their juniors once they have been submitted to them. Instead, the higher officers should record their own notes giving their views on the subject, where necessary correcting or modifying the facts given in earlier notes. (ii) Pasting over a note or a portion of it to conceal, shall not be done. Where a note recorded in the first instance requires any modification on account of additional facts or any error having come to notice, a subsequent note may be recorded, keeping the earlier note intact. (iii) Where a final decision already communicated to a party is found later on to have been given on a mistaken ground or incorrect facts or wrong interpretation of rules due to misunderstanding, such withdrawal may have also legal implications. In all such cases, in addition to consulting the Ministry of Law, wherever necessary, 12 such a withdrawal should be permitted only after the approval of an officer higher than the one, who took the original decision, has been obtained and reasons for the reversal or modification of the earlier decision have been duly recorded on the file.