Page 23 - Bengal Records Manual, 1943.doc

Compendium on Acts and Rules

Supervision
of Collectors. 93. It will always demand the exercise of considerable tact, local knowledge, and
intelligence to prevent the destruction of papers that may be needed for future

reference. Much, therefore, must depend on the careful supervision of Collectors.
No rules can be applicable to all districts in all cases/ and it is not intended that

the classification now prescribed should be arbitrarily followed with out the

exercise of any individual discretion. Such discretion will generally be more
soundly exercised in the preservation than in the destruction of a record of

doubtful importance.

Object of the 94. The three lists given in rule 101 contain the detailed classification by which
classification.
officers are to be guided in the destruction of English correspondence. The object
of this classification is to provide for the permanent preservation of all really

important papers, and at the same time to ensure the periodical destruction of
the mass of ephemeral and trivial correspondence that now blocks up the

record-shelves and almirahs in the local offices. It will he observed
that it is "correspondence of importance" only that is classified under class A.

The object of this classification is to enable a Collector to weed the files of papers
of no permanent value. It is evident, for instance, that correspondence

regarding the- establishments for making settlements and surveys needs not be
kept for ever, though it may be well to keep it for more than, two years. In such

matters the discretion of a Collector must be exercised.

Correspondence 95. No early correspondence that has already been bound in books is on any
bound up in
books not to be account to be destroyed without the special sanction of Government. This sanction
destroyed.
will, as a rule, only be given when such books are in such a state of decay as
to be practically useless, or when a procedure has been followed similar to that

described by Mr. Toynbee in the preface to his Sketch of the Administration of the

Hooghly District from 1795 to 1845, published at the Bengal Secretariat Press in
1888.

Examination of
unimportant 96. Although, according to the lists, papers in Class "A" are to be kept "for ever", an
class papers expression used because A it is unsafe to fix any period within which it is certain
for
destruction they can be destroyed without any danger, it is necessary, in order to prevent the

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