She took oath as a cabinet minister in the Narendra Modi headed government on 26 May 2014 and was replaced by Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi in July 2016.

[6] She is a Dawoodi Bohra Ismaili Shia Gujarati with Arab ancestry, as traced by her ancestral roots in the Arabian peninsula as well as Gujarat state.

[7] Her husband, Akbar Ali Akhtar Heptulla, a manpower consultant, was instrumental in the establishment of the Patriot newspaper in the 1960s.

[20] She said that minorities needed a level playing field in Indian society, but reservation is not the solution as it kills the spirit of competition.

She was also elected President of Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), a Geneva-based international organisation at Council's 165th session in Berlin in 1999.

She has also written on human social security, sustainable development, environment, reforms for women and on ties between India and west Asia.

Heptulla faced charges of having morphed a 1958 photograph to show her along with Maulana Abul Kalam Azad in a publication of the Indian Council of Cultural Relations (ICCR).

The controversial photograph was published in an ICCR publication titled 'Journey of a legend', on the life of Maulana Azad, a noted scholar and the country's first education minister.

Delhi High court had directed the CBI to investigate the case on a public interest litigation filed by ICCR Employees Association president.