to have his claim adjudicated in accordance with the VBA Letter duty to request SMRs and VA medical records, notwithstanding that that Letter was dated in August 1999, subsequent to the December 1997 BVA decision on appeal. See Karnas v. Derwinski, 1 Vet.App. 308, 313 (1991) (“where the law or regulation changes after a claim has been filed or reopened but before the administrative or judicial appeal process has been concluded, the version most favorable to the appellant should apply unless Congress provided otherwise or permitted the [Secretary] to do otherwise and the Secretary did so”); see also Dippel, 12 Vet.App. at 473 (“the Court has applied Kamas to process-oriented administrative issuances that are binding on the Board” (citing Bernard v. Brown, 4 Vet.App. 384, 393-94 (1993) (<HOLDING>)). “[T]he Court has repeatedly applied Kamas to
recognizing a divergence of opinion regarding the retroactive application of mennonite holding that any inherent power to remand to the bia for the consideration of additional evidence should not be exercised where i the basis for the remand is an instruction to consider documentary evidence that was not in the record before the bia and ii the agency regulations set forth procedures to reopen a case before the bia for the taking of additional evidence holding that the court will not remand if i the basis for the remand is an instruction to consider documentary evidence that was not in the record before the bia and ii the agency regulations set forth procedures to reopen a case before the bia for the taking of additional evidence holding that remand required for application of va gen coun prec opinion 1692 regarding bva procedures which was issued before appeal process was completed holding that the boards order to remand a claim to a va regional office that neither denied nor granted relief is not reviewable on appeal