A 76-year-old woman twice convicted of murdering her husband's ex-wife on a Germantown street in 2013 could walk free next week, but Montgomery County prosecutors are fighting to keep her locked up while they decide whether to put her on trial a third time. Raminder Kaur is serving a life sentence for the killing of 49-year-old Preeta Gabba, a conviction a federal judge vacated in July after finding prosecutors violated her constitutional rights.
U.S. District Chief Judge George L. Russell III found that Montgomery County prosecutors had used Kaur's privileged attorney-client information to strengthen their case at her 2016 retrial, according to The Daily Record. Russell wrote that the state used Kaur's privileged information at the retrial to bolster its once weak case against her, and he ordered that she be freed or retried. That ruling built on an August 2025 decision from a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which held that prosecutors' access to Kaur's defense communications had tainted the trial and remanded for de novo review of whether that access violated her Sixth Amendment rights, according to Courthouse News. The constitutional breach traced back to prosecutors' access to Kaur's privileged defense information during new-trial proceedings, which they used against her at retrial two years later, per federal court records.
A Killing on the Way to the Bus Stop
Gabba was shot three times at close range around 7:45 a.m. on October 12, 2013, while walking to a bus stop for work along Crystal Rock Drive in Germantown, according to court records reviewed by FindLaw. Montgomery County police arrested Kaur and her husband, Baldeo Taneja, in Nashville, Tennessee, the day after the shooting, recovering a .357 Luger LCR revolver from the back seat of their vehicle that ballistics linked to the murder, per the same case records. Police records also showed that Taneja and Kaur had purchased two handguns in Nashville, though the alleged September 28, 2013, purchase date could not be verified.
At Kaur's original 2014 trial, prosecutors argued that she and Taneja conspired to kill Gabba to eliminate his obligation to pay her $2,400 a month in alimony. Taneja, who holds a doctorate in biostatistics, was 62 when he was arrested; he had been married to Gabba in India in 2002 before immigrating to the U.S. and later marrying Kaur, court filings show. He was ultimately sentenced to life in prison, and his own requests for postconviction relief were unsuccessful. The Supreme Court declined in October 2020 to review lower-court rulings upholding Kaur's conviction, sending her legal team toward the federal habeas corpus path that finally succeeded six years later.
A Confession Aired on National Television
The case took an unusual turn in July when Taneja's confession aired on Snapped: Killer Couples on the Oxygen Network. He said he murdered his ex-wife by himself and that Kaur played no role, and he signed a declaration stating she was completely innocent, expressing what the record describes as tremendous guilt for not speaking up for her sooner. Montgomery County prosecutors, however, have pushed back hard on that account, questioning the credibility of Taneja's confession and arguing that its credibility, admissibility and weight still must be litigated.
Special prosecutors Robert Dean of Prince George's County and Kirsten Brown of Frederick were assigned to the case to avoid conflicts stemming from the original prosecution team's exposure to the privileged files, the outlet's report notes. On September 2, Dean and Brown filed an opposition to Kaur's motion for release out of the Montgomery County State's Attorney's Office, writing that the factors weighing against her release remain substantial. Prosecutors argued there is still ample evidence to convict Kaur and that she should remain incarcerated while the case is sorted out.
Bond Hearing Looms Next Week
Kaur's attorney, Kevin Collins of Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C., argues that her declining health and record of good behavior mean she poses no risk of harming others, and that she should be free while prosecutors decide whether to retry her. A bond hearing to decide whether Kaur should be released is scheduled for September 15. If convicted again, she faces a possible life sentence, and a spokesperson for the Montgomery County State's Attorney's Office could not confirm whether she would in fact be tried a third time.
Kaur was convicted twice of murdering Preeta Gabba in Germantown, Maryland; the first conviction led to a new trial and the second conviction was vacated by a federal judge. Whether Montgomery County ultimately mounts a third trial, or lets her go, remains an open question as the September 15 hearing approaches, with prosecutors and Kaur's defense team offering starkly different pictures of what the evidence — and Taneja's televised confession — actually proves.
