pAtNa, April 5 -- Justice BV Nagarathna, who is likely to take over as the first woman Chief Justice of India next year, on Saturday said, "The strength of the Constitution lies not only in the rights it guarantees but in the robustness of its institutional structure." "To safeguard the integrity of democratic process, if those who conduct elections are dependent on those who contest them, the neutrality of the process cannot be assured," she said. She said, "Institutions like Election Commission, CAG, Finance Commission etc. have to be independent to preserve constitutionalism." She was delivering the 1st Dr Rajendra Prasad Memorial Lecture on the theme "Constitutionalism beyond Rights: Why Structure Matters" at the Chanakya National Law University, Patna. She said there were a number of constitutions guarantee rights, yet those rights could not be realised due to the absence of constitutional structure. Underlining the importance of both horizontal and vertical separation of powers, Justice Nagarathna said the "basic structure is the theory of structure to limit the amending powers of Parliament". The Supreme Court judge said that while legislative and executive accountability are subject to judicial scrutiny, judicial accountability is anchored in the constitutional text. Stressing the importance of cooperative federalism, decentralisation, and the Directive Principles in advancing welfare and justice, she said that disputes arising between Centre and states or among states needed to be carefully handled. "Ideally the disputes between centre and states and among the states should be amicably settled keeping in view constitutional dharma and the federal spirit of the Constitution," she added.P4...