29 notice, the officer-in-charge shall take into consideration such opinion and make a decision in respect of providing information to the applicant.” In the case in hand, the registered political parties did not consider their audited statements as “secret information” under sections 7(c),(d),(o) or (r) of the RTI Act; as such, in view of the said provision there was no need to seek opinion from the registered political parties for supplying their audited statements of accounts to the petitioners. Moreover, according to the said provision, the authority from which the information has been sought is not required to rely solely on the opinion of a third-party in taking its decision; rather it shall take into consideration such opinion and arrive at a decision in accordance with the provisions of the RTI Act. As such, refusal of the Election Commission to provide with the concerned information on the ground that the political parties concerns have not provided an affirmative opinion is violative of the provisions of the said Act. On the other hand, section 7 of the RTI Act provides with certain types of information, which the authority is not bound to provide, and the 2nd proviso to section 7 requires that “the concerned authority shall take prior approval from the Information Commission for withholding information under this section”. But in the instant case, since the Election Commission did not seek any such prior approval from the Information Commission in respect of withholding the audited statements of accounts submitted by the political parties;