New Delhi: Union Minister Smriti Irani in a scathing attack on the Congress said that the then CBI was investigating the Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case with an aim to implicate BJP party chief Amit Shah. While addressing a press conference in Delhi, Irani said that “the kitchen cabinet of Sonia Gandhi” waged war against Shah.

"Congress misused the CBI in 2010 to frame BJP president Amit Shah. There’s clear proof of political conspiracy by Congress against him. We want to highlight to the nation that Congress will not spare anyone who comes in their pursuit of power...The kitchen cabinet of Sonia Gandhi waged war against the BJP president so much so when Amitbhai Shah brought his desire to be discharged, the special court recorded that the applicant is shown to be involved by the CBI for some political reasons," said Irani, according to media reports.

Irani, citing the court’s order, also said that CBI fabricated evidence to implicate the BJP president.

On December 21, a special CBI court acquitted all the 22 policement accused in the case.

In his order, Judge Sharma said his predecessor (JudgeM B Gosavi) while passing an order of discharge in the application of accused number 16 (BJP president Amit Shah) recorded that the investigation was "politically motivated".

"Having given my dispassionate consideration to the entire material placed before me and having examined each of the witnesses and the evidence closely, I have no hesitation in recording that a premier investigating agency like CBI had before it a premeditated theory and a script intended to implicate political leaders," the judgement said.

The order said the CBI, during its probe into the case, was doing something other than arriving at the truth of the offences in question.

"It clearly appears that the CBI was more concerned in establishing a particular pre-conceived and premeditated theory rather than finding out the truth," the judgement said.

It said the CBI did what was required to reach that 'goal' instead of conducting a probe in accordance with law.

"The entire investigation was thus targeted to act upon a script to achieve the said goal and in the process of its zeal to implicate political leaders, CBI created evidence and placed witness statements in the charge-sheet," the judgement said.

Gangster Sohrabuddin and his wife were killed in an alleged fake encounter by the Gujarat Police in 2005. His aide Prajapati was later killed in another alleged fake encounter by the police.

With inputs from PTI