Days after a Mumbai court acquitted all 22 accused in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case, Union Minister Smriti Irani on Tuesday launched a scathing attack on the Congress leadership and said the party had "manufactured evidence" by using CBI to "politically destroy" BJP leader Amit Shah.

Lashing out at the Congress and its leadership, Irani said Shah was targeted by then president Sonia Gandhi because Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the then Gujarat chief minister, and Shah were seen as their political rivals.

Addressing a media gathering in Delhi, Irani said, "The Congress is always willing to trample upon justice and the Constitution to finish off its political rivals."

Reading from the Mumbai court's order that criticised the CBI probe against Shah, Irani said the agency created evidence to suit its "preconceived and premeditated" theory to implicate political leaders. "The court has admitted that these cases were slapped against Shah for purely political reasons. Not only in the Mumbai High Court, but also in the Supreme Court, the Congress' conspiracy got defeated," Irani said.

Describing the case as a "trial by fire" for Shah, the Union minister for textiles said the BJP leader had come out "unscathed" as the CBI court verdict has shown that "truth cannot be destroyed".

"The Congress and its president used the CBI to manufacture evidence to politically destroy Shah. It is one of the finest examples of the length to which the Congress will go to destroy its political opponents," she said.

The Union Minister said that Shah was arrested in 2010 on the orders of the Congress leadership and left to rot in jail before he was granted bail by court, also acknowledging that activist Harsh Mander — "a member of Sonia Gandhi's kitchen cabinet" — had moved the Supreme Court against Shah's discharge.