only discharged his constitutional functions. If this be so, it is difficult to hold that the session in which the amendments were passed was illegally convened . The challenge to the validity of the amendments on this score must be overruled. 380. Counsel for the respondent submitted that it is immaterial when a candidate committed a corrupt practice – whether it was before or after he became a candidate – and that an election would be set aside even if a person committed the corrupt practice before he became a candidate. Section 79(b) of the Representation of the People Act 1951 defined the word 'candidate' as follows: " 'candidate' means a person who has been or claims to have been duly nominated as a candidate at any election and any such person shall be deemed to have been a candidate as from the time when with the election in prospect he began to hold himself out as a prospective candidate." Clause 7 of the Election Laws (Amendment) Act 1975 substituted the present definition in Section 79 (b) which reads : " 'candidate means a person who has been or claims to have been duly nominated as a candidate at an election." 381. In support of the proposition that an election can be set aside even if a person has committed corrupt practice of bribery before he became a candidate counsel cited Halsbury's Laws of England 3rd ed., Volume 14, pages 222 (para 386) and 218 (para 380). 382. These paragraphs state that in order to constitute the offence of bribery it does not matter how long before an election a bribe is given provided that the bribe is operative at the time of the election and that time is material only when considering the question of evidence. 383. Counsel further said that under Section 100 of the Representation of the People Act. 1951 an election is liable to be set aside if it is found under cl. (b) of sub-section (1) of that section that a returned candidate has committed corrupt practice; that ex-hypothesi, a returned candidate cannot commit a corrupt practice and therefore, it is not the description of a person as a returned candidate that is material. He argued that if in Section 100 (1) (b) the word 'returned candidate' is used not with the idea of indicating that a person should have committed corrupt practice after he became a returned candidate, there is no reason to think that the word candidate in S. 123 (7) has been used to show that the corrupt practice therein mentioned should have been committed after a person has become a 'candidate in order that the election of the candidate might be set aside. 384. There can be no doubt that Section 100 (1) (b) when it speaks of commission or corrupt practice by a returned candidate, it can only mean commission of corrupt practice by a candidate before he became a returned candidate. Any other reading of the sub-section would be absurd. But there is no such compulsion to read the word 'candidate' in S. 123 (7) in the same manner. It is the context that gives colour to a word. A word is not crystal