MUMBAI, March 18 -- The sessions court has rejected a plea filed by Mumbai mayor and BJP corporator Ritu Tawde seeking discharge from a 2016 case of alleged assault on municipal school teachers. Additional sessions judge YP Manathkar said the victims and eye witnesses had categorically named the BJP corporator as "the person who beat them by hands inside the school", and the prosecution material, including witness statements, was "more than sufficient to frame charges" against her. The court relied on settled Supreme Court precedents and underscored that it need not conduct a detailed evaluation of evidence at the discharge stage; "grave suspicion" alone was enough to frame charges against the newly-elected Mayor, it said. "The judge has the power to sift and weigh the evidence, but only for the limited purpose of finding out whether a prima facie case. has been made out," the judge said; the court was not expected to conduct a "mini-trial", he added. He further observed that where the material gives rise to "grave suspicion", the case must proceed to framing of charges. Tawde had sought discharge on multiple grounds, including a delay of nearly 13 days between the incident and the registration of the FIR, absence of criminal intent and lack of corroboration by independent witnesses. She also claimed that she had been falsely implicated due to political motives. Even if the FIR against her were accepted at face value, the essential ingredients of the offences were not made out and continuation of proceedings would be unwarranted, Tawde said in her plea. The prosecution opposed the plea, pointing to eyewitness statements, particularly those of injured teachers, to argue that Tawde had directly participated in the assault. The case stemmed from a complaint lodged by the headmistress of a Urdu medium school in Vakola, where, according to the prosecution, Tawde, then a corporator, and others entered on July 29, 2016 amid a dispute over the transfer of a teacher and allegedly assaulted members of the school staff....