Valid Soduku

Determine if a Sudoku is valid, according to: Sudoku Puzzles - The Rules.

The Sudoku board could be partially filled, where empty cells are filled with the character '.'.

Note: A valid Sudoku board (partially filled) is not necessarily solvable. Only the filled cells need to be validated.

class Solution(object):
    def isValidSudoku(self, board):
        """
        :type board: List[List[str]]
        :rtype: bool
        """
        if not board:
            return False

        inspectH = {}   
        rows = len(board)
        cols = len(board[0])

        if rows != 9 or cols != 9:
            return False

        for i in xrange(rows):

            row_name = "row_" + str(i)   
            #print row_name

            for j in xrange(cols):

                item = board[i][j]
                if item == '.':
                    continue

                ***# 1. keep collecting the items respective to each column***
                col_name = "col_" + str(j)
                if col_name not in inspectH:
                    inspectH[col_name] = [item]
                else:
                    inspectH[col_name].append(item)

                ***# 2. keep collecting the items respective to each row***
                if row_name not in inspectH:
                    inspectH[row_name] = [item]
                else:
                    inspectH[row_name].append(item)

                ***# 3. keep collecting the items with respect to each basket
                # this will help inspect each internal 3x3 soduku grids
                # after every 3 rows***
                if j <= 2:
                    basket_name = "basket_1"
                elif j <= 5:
                    basket_name = "basket_2"
                else:
                    basket_name = "basket_3"

                if basket_name not in inspectH:
                    inspectH[basket_name] = [item]
                else:
                    inspectH[basket_name].append(item)

            ***# now check the duplicates for every row***
            if row_name in inspectH:
                if len(inspectH[row_name]) != len(set(inspectH[row_name])):
                    return False
                else:
                    del inspectH[row_name]

            ***# now check the duplicates for the baskets - for every 3 rows***
            if (i+1) % 3 == 0:
                if "basket_1" in inspectH:
                    if len(inspectH["basket_1"]) != len(set(inspectH["basket_1"])):
                        return False
                    else:
                        del inspectH["basket_1"]

                if "basket_2" in inspectH:
                    if len(inspectH["basket_2"]) != len(set(inspectH["basket_2"])):
                        return False
                    else:
                        del inspectH["basket_2"]

                if "basket_3" in inspectH:
                    if len(inspectH["basket_3"]) != len(set(inspectH["basket_3"])):
                        return False
                    else:
                        del inspectH["basket_3"]



        ***# outside the for loops check the duplicates for each colum***
        for k, v in inspectH.iteritems():
            if len(v) != len(set(v)):
                return False

        ***# finally all is well. so return True***      
        return True