PUNE, Nov. 3 -- From the death row to a life of freedom--former medical student Deepti Devasthali's life has been a roller coaster ride for two decades since she and her mother were arrested in 2006 for the sensational abduction and murder of Pune orthopaedic Dr Deepak Mahajan. On Saturday, she walked out of Yerwada prison after the Bombay High Court ruled that she could not be made to serve 30 years of imprisonment under a category meant for life convicts involved in murder cases. Devasthali, 40, and her mother Leena, 71, a lawyer, were arrested by Pune police after a complaint was filed by Dr Smita Mahajan, the deceased's wife. According to her complaint, Dr Deepak Mahajan had got a job offer on the phone from someone claiming to be from Omkar Charitable Trust in Pune. The orthopaedic surgeon left to meet the caller but never came back. Soon after, the family received a ransom call for Rs.25 lakh. The anti-extortion cell traced the call to Leena Devasthali and her daughter Deepti and the duo allegedly told the investigators that they had called the doctor to a lodge in Pune where they administered him with injectable sedatives but accidentally overdosed him which led to his death. They then dismembered his body and disposed of the parts in the forests around Karjat. Allegedly, the two women dressed up like characters from the then popular TV show 'Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin' when they went out to dispose the body. In December 2007, a sessions court in Pune convicted the mother-daughter duo and sentenced them to death. However, in 2009, the Bombay High Court set aside their death sentences and acquitted them of the murder charge while upholding their convictions for kidnapping for ransom, criminal conspiracy, cheating by impersonation and other offences under the Indian Penal Code. Their sentences were subsequently commuted to life imprisonment. Last week, a bench of High Court Justices MS Karnik and Sandesh Patil ordered Deepti Devasthali's release stating that the category of keeping murder convicts in jail for 30 years was not applicable to her as she had been acquitted of the murder charge in 2009. Over the weekend Devasthali told HT that after twenty years in prison she hoped to rebuild her life through social work and entrepreneurship. The former medical student said she wanted to work towards promoting washable sanitary pads, which she believes can help women save money while reducing the environmental burden caused by disposable sanitary products. But her immediate priority was to adapt to a world that had changed considerably during her years behind bars. "Even before I take up any business initiative, I have to first learn how to use the smartphone." Devasthali also spoke about what she described as the excessive concentration of authority in the office of the jail superintendent and the absence of an effective grievance redressal mechanism in prisons. "Jail is a very dangerous place and I have come out after 20 years." Prisoners, she said, were required to approach the jail superintendent for almost every issue, irrespective of its nature. "If a prisoner is ill, she has to apply to the jail superintendent. Even for a small problem like a leaking bathroom, one has to approach the jail superintendent. During my 20 years of incarceration, I have seen jail superintendents who are so powerful that they wield almost like God-like authority in the prison compound. There's complete centralisation of power," she said. She alleged that prisoners had no effective mechanism to register grievances and that responses from the jail superintendent's office were often inadequate. "This may be a problem across the country. Prisoners deserve their rights and needs to be treated with dignity. I had to suffer a lot during my time in jail," she claimed while speaking to HT from her mother's home in Dahisar, Mumbai. Leena Devasthali was released from prison last year after she turned 60 and had completed 14 years of imprisonment for plotting and abducting Dr Mahajan. "It was a false case and we were framed. All our relatives deserted us. We are Brahmins, yet there was nobody to help us," Leena told HT. Her daughter said that they had challenged their conviction in the kidnapping case before the Supreme Court, while the prosecution had challenged their acquittal in the murder case. Yet, the release of Leena and Deepti Devasthali also leaves the big question unanswered: If it weren't them, then who killed Dr Mahajan?...