NEW DELHI: The Election Commission on Saturday, while admitting that Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi had entered the EVM enclosure at Phoola polling station at Amethi without due permission of the presiding officer, ruled that he had only inspected a defective EVM in the voting compartment and left the polling station before polling began with a new EVM."Under the above circumstances, no case of any violation is made out against Rahul Gandhi," the EC said, disposing of the complaint relating to the Phoola polling station. The Commission’s view was based on an inquiry by the UP chief electoral officer which concluded that "since Rahul left the polling station before polling began, he did not violate the secrecy of ballot and also did not hinder the polling process in any way".However, EC was silent on his presence at two other polling stations — Ashtabhuja Vidyalaya, Sahamau and Prathamik Vidyalaya, Koora – captured on film by TOI photographers. The photographs were published by TOI on May 8. CEC V S Sampath, in an interview to PTI, said Rahul’s presence at these polling stations was not examined as the formal complaint made to the poll panel related only to the Phoola polling station.Incidentally, the EC has no restrictions to only go by formal complaints to examine possible violations of the election law. It has powers to take suo motu notice of media reports and initiate an inquiry.Poll conduct rules require a candidate to take permission from the presiding officer before entering the voting compartment to inspect even a faulty EVM. However, the UP CEO’s inquiry report said "it is possible to infer that neither Mr Gandhi sought permission to inspect the voting compartment nor was he stopped by anyone from doing so".According to Commission sources, while Rahul has been given clean chit, the Phoola presiding officer may not be in the clear yet. The EC could discuss possible action against him for failing to prevent the Congress vice-president from entering the EVM enclosure.The EC clean chit to Rahul, which came almost 80 hours after Rahul was photographed inside the voting compartment, was based on report of the Amethi district election officer, the version of one photographer (not from TOI), polling agents of Congress and other parties as well as results of a further enquiry conducted by IAS officers Tiwari and Pandian at the direction of UP CEO Umesh Sinha.Tiwari and Pandian, during the course of the inquiry, spoke to the returning officer, additional returning officer, sector magistrate, micro observer, a photographer with a Hindi daily, polling party members, polling agents of the political parties and mediapersons. According to the findings, the photographer said Rahul had gone to inspect the voting compartment on learning that the EVM there was not working. A Hindi daily reported the next day that polling with the new EVMs had started at 10.40am.Tiloi SDM said he was asked to proceed to Phoola for some EVM problem. On reaching there, he found that Rahul had just left. The SDM then helped with replacement of the faulty EVM. According to micro observer Kailash Prasad Srivastava, polling at Phoola polling station began with the new EVM at 10.35am.Sector magistrate Mohammed said he came to know of the EVM snag at Phoola around 7am, along with similar problems in two other polling stations. He reached Phoola only around 10am, citing reasons like indisposition, traffic problems and need to collect additional EVMs from the tehsil office. Then he went to the other two polling stations and came back later to collect the old EVMs.Presiding officer Sadhuram of Phoola polling station said actual polling started at 10.35am with the new EVM. He reiterated that Rahul left the polling station by 10.15am after inspecting the old, defective EVM.The polling officers said Rahul visited the Phoola polling station at around 10-10.15am and inspected the faulty EVM placed in the voting compartment. Polling began later around 10.30am.The Congress polling agent Ashok Kumar Shukla said he was away from the polling station when Rahul visited. He claimed the person in the picture seen next to Rahul is his son, who was also the reliever for him. The polling agents of AAP and BSP confirmed that actual polling began around 10.30am after Rahul left.