The Highway Bus of Udaipur: Inside the 2022 RPSC 2nd Grade Teacher Leak, the Fall of a Commission Member, and the Bulldozers of Jaipur

I. The Teacher Craze: 3.7 Lakh Aspirants, 9,760 Posts

In Rajasthan, a post as a Grade-II Senior Teacher in the Secondary Education Department represents the absolute pinnacle of rural economic aspiration. With over 9,760 vacancies advertised by the RPSC in 2022 across science, mathematics, social studies, Hindi, and English, the recruitment was the largest state teacher drive of the post-pandemic era.

Over 12 lakh applications flooded the RPSC portal. For the compulsory Group-C General Knowledge and Educational Psychology paper alone, more than 3,74,000 candidates registered.

In districts across southern and western Rajasthan—particularly Jalore, Barmer, Nagaur, and Sikar—the entire local economy is structured around government recruitment examinations. Families subsisting on arid farming sell livestock or take loans from local moneylenders at 36% annual interest to finance years of private coaching in Jaipur or Jodhpur. A permanent government teaching job brings a guaranteed salary, high social status, medical benefits, and lifelong pension security.

The RPSC, headquartered atop the Ghughra Ghati hill in Ajmer, claimed its examination architecture was impenetrable. The commission assured the public that question papers were stored in biometric double-lock vaults and escorted to district collectorates under armed police convoys.

Yet the syndicate targeting the 2022 Senior Teacher exam had evolved a method that bypassed transit convoys entirely: compromising the very leadership that governed the vault.

II. The Inside Vault: The Betrayal of Babulal Katara

At the pinnacle of the conspiracy sat an individual whose arrest would send shockwaves across India's constitutional landscape: Babulal Katara.

Katara was not a low-wage peon or outsourced data entry operator; he was a sitting Member of the Rajasthan Public Service Commission, a constitutional dignitary appointed under Article 316 of the Constitution of India. Hailing from Dungarpur, Katara had been appointed to the commission in October 2020 by the Ashok Gehlot administration.

As an RPSC Member, Katara was formally entrusted with the confidential setting, proofreading, and final approval of the question papers for the Grade-II Senior Teacher recruitment drive.

Inside the high-security confidential branch at Ajmer—where external communication devices were banned and armed sentries stood outside—Katara possessed legitimate, unmonitored physical access to the master manuscripts.

According to subsequent chargesheets filed by the Rajasthan Police Special Operations Group (SOG), Katara had entered into a covert arrangement with an educational broker named Sher Singh Meena (a government school vice-principal) and Katara’s own nephew, Anil Kumar (alias Sheru).

In early December 2022, Katara hand-copied and photographed the master manuscript of the General Knowledge paper directly inside the confidential strongroom.

He handed the stolen paper to his nephew Anil Kumar, who transferred it to Sher Singh Meena.

For this single act of constitutional betrayal, Katara was paid ₹60 lakh in cash delivered directly to his official residence in Ajmer.

Sher Singh Meena, in turn, sold the stolen manuscript to Jaipur's most notorious coaching kingpins: Suresh Dhaka and Dr. Bhupendra Saran, for ₹1 crore.

III. The Genesis of the Moving Bus: Evading the Police Grid

Suresh Dhaka and Dr. Bhupendra Saran were veteran operators in Rajasthan’s coaching underworld. They ran the prominent Adhigam Coaching Institute, housed in a sprawling five-story commercial building on Gopalpura Bypass in Jaipur—the bustling commercial artery known as Rajasthan's "Coaching Hub."

Having survived previous police crackdowns during the REET 2021 and police recruitment leaks, Dhaka and Saran understood that stationary solver camps carried fatal risks.

In previous scams, syndicates had sequestered candidates in private hotels or agricultural farmhouses. But local police informers and beat constables had become adept at raiding suspect properties on the eve of major state exams.

To eliminate this vulnerability, the syndicate devised an ingenious tactical innovation: The Moving Classroom.

The logic was ruthless: - A moving passenger bus travelling at 60 kilometers per hour across remote highway stretches between districts leaves no fixed geographic footprint. - Mobile phones inside the bus would be confiscated and switched off, preventing digital signals or tower triangulation from alerting police cyber cells. - Solvers could distribute the question papers, conduct intensive memorization drills while in transit, and drop off candidates directly outside their respective examination centers across Udaipur minutes before gates opened at 8:00 AM.

Working through their regional broker in Jalore, Piraram, and a corrupt government school headmaster, Suresh Vishnoi, the syndicate assembled its paying clientele.

The price was fixed between ₹10 lakh and ₹15 lakh per candidate. A substantial cash advance was taken upfront, with original academic degree certificates, blank signed cheques, and property sale agreements held as collateral for the remaining balance.

IV. The Midnight Drive along NH-27

On the night of Friday, December 23, 2022, a chartered luxury passenger bus departed from Jalore.

Over the course of three hours, the bus made pre-arranged stops in dark rural junctions across Jalore and Sirohi, picking up pre-vetted candidates who had been instructed to arrive alone. In total, 40 candidates—including seven women—boarded the vehicle.

Once the bus pulled onto National Highway 27 heading toward Udaipur, the heavy cloth curtains were drawn, and the doors were locked from the inside.

Headmaster Suresh Vishnoi and a team of hired technical solvers opened sealed envelopes containing photocopies of the stolen RPSC paper.

For the next four hours, as the bus rumbled through the darkened Aravalli valleys, the passengers were subjected to intense memorization drills: - Questions on Rajasthani architecture, the 1857 mutiny in Mewar, and environmental treaties were recited aloud. - Tutors walked up and down the aisle, quizzing candidates on numerical sequences and constitutional articles. - Candidates were drilled on the exact ABCD options to shade, ensuring that even candidates with poor educational foundations could score over 80 out of 100 on the paper.

The conspirators believed they had executed a foolproof operation. But they had failed to account for old-fashioned human intelligence.

V. December 24, 5:30 AM: The Trap at Bekariya

In Udaipur, District Superintendent of Police Vikas Sharma had spent weeks cultivating informants across the coaching and transport networks of southern Rajasthan.

At approximately 2:00 AM on December 24, a confidential informant delivered an urgent, high-grade tip: a private bus carrying dozens of candidates and leaked examination papers had crossed into Udaipur district via the Pindwara highway.

SP Sharma immediately mobilized a specialized tactical team. Rather than attempting a high-speed chase on mountain curves, police set up a strategic blockade at the Bekariya-Sukher toll corridor, blocking the highway with barricades and heavy trucks disguised as transport vehicles.

At 5:30 AM, the suspect bus rounded a bend and slowed down at the checkpoint.

Police officers surrounded the vehicle, smashed the side glass, and forced the driver to unlock the pneumatic doors. Armed commandos swarmed the cabin.

The scene inside was frozen in time: candidates were caught with pens still touching the leaked question papers, while headmaster Suresh Vishnoi stood in the aisle clutching a master answer key.

Police seized: - Handwritten and photocopied question papers containing 80 objective questions. - Laptops, portable printing equipment, and candidate admit cards. - Over ₹5.5 lakh in cash and dozens of blank bank cheques.

All 49 passengers—including 37 candidates, 7 female aspirants, headmaster Suresh Vishnoi, and the drivers—were placed under arrest and escorted to the Udaipur police headquarters.

VI. 8:45 AM: The Agony and the Cancellation

At Udaipur police headquarters, detectives immediately established contact with the RPSC confidential section in Ajmer.

Over a secure video uplink, senior police officers compared the questions seized from the bus against the official Group-C General Knowledge paper scheduled to be distributed at 9:00 AM.

The result was conclusive: the questions on the highway bus were an exact, question-for-question replica of the official examination paper.

At 8:45 AM—barely fifteen minutes before 3.74 lakh candidates sat in classrooms across Rajasthan—Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot announced on social media and state television that the morning shift examination was cancelled statewide.

Outside hundreds of test centers in Jaipur, Jodhpur, Kota, and Bikaner, chaos erupted. Invigilators who had already collected candidate bags announced that the test was called off.

Thousands of students broke down in tears outside locked school gates. Many had spent their last savings on bus tickets and hotel rooms, braving sub-zero winter temperatures, only to watch their hopes evaporate once again.

Protests flared across major cities. Students burnt tires on the roads, blocked railway tracks, and staged sit-ins outside district collectorates, chanting slogans against the recurring scourge of paper leaks in Rajasthan.

VII. The Bulldozers of Gopalpura Bypass

The government recognized that public fury had reached a dangerous tipping point.

Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot directed the police and civic authorities to take unprecedented punitive action against the masterminds.

The investigation, transferred to the specialized Special Operations Group (SOG) under ADGP Ashok Rathore, zeroed in on Suresh Dhaka and Bhupendra Saran’s operational headquarters: the Adhigam Coaching Institute on Gopalpura Bypass, Jaipur.

On January 9, 2023, the Jaipur Development Authority (JDA), backed by hundreds of armed police personnel, deployed heavy commercial bulldozers and hydraulic excavators to Gopalpura Bypass.

The JDA declared that the five-story commercial building housing the coaching center was an illegal construction that violated municipal setbacks and building bylaws.

Over six hours of continuous demolition, television news channels broadcast live coverage as hydraulic claws ripped down the facade, collapsed the classroom floors, and crushed the signboards of Adhigam Coaching into rubble.

It was the first time in Indian history that civic bulldozers had been deployed to physically destroy the commercial infrastructure of an examination paper leak syndicate.

VIII. The Fall of Babulal Katara: Handcuffs on the Commission

While the demolition sent a stark message, the mastermind remained elusive. Bhupendra Saran went into hiding across multiple states, prompting Rajasthan Police to announce a ₹1 lakh bounty on his head.

On February 23, 2023, after a sixty-day interstate manhunt, SOG commandos intercepted and arrested Dr. Bhupendra Saran at Bengaluru International Airport as he attempted to board a flight.

Saran’s interrogation provided the ultimate missing link: the identity of the source inside the RPSC strongroom.

On April 18, 2023, the SOG executed the most momentous arrest in the history of Rajasthan’s civil administration.

Detectives raided the official government residence of RPSC Member Babulal Katara in Ajmer, placing the sitting constitutional officer under arrest alongside his nephew Anil Kumar and his official driver Gopal Singh.

During searches of Katara’s residence and ancestral home in Dungarpur, police seized: - ₹3.11 lakh in cash and gold jewelry weighing over 500 grams. - Microscopic forensic evidence linking paper fibers in Katara's office to the leaked bus manuscripts. - Encrypted WhatsApp chats detailing financial transactions with Sher Singh Meena.

The arrest of a sitting Member of a Public Service Commission shattered the myth that paper leaks were the exclusive preserve of external criminal gangs, proving that the rot had penetrated the inner sanctuary of the constitutional commission itself.

IX. Institutional Legacy: The July Retest and PMLA Crackdown

In the wake of Katara’s arrest, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) initiated an aggressive money-laundering investigation under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The ED executed raids across dozens of locations in Jaipur, Ajmer, Jodhpur, and Dungarpur, attaching commercial properties, agricultural farms, and bank deposits valued at over ₹50 crore linked to Katara, Saran, and Dhaka.

On Sunday, July 30, 2023, seven months after the highway interception, the RPSC conducted the re-examination for the Group-C General Knowledge paper for over 3.7 lakh candidates.

The retest was executed under the tightest security protocols in Rajasthan’s history: - Mobile internet services were temporarily suspended across major districts to prevent digital leaks. - Centers were equipped with active CCTV monitoring, live metal detectors, and multi-tier biometric identification. - The examination concluded smoothly, without a single integrity breach.

The 2022 Udaipur moving bus scandal permanently altered the trajectory of examination integrity in India. It demonstrated the breathtaking extremes to which syndicates would go—chartering luxury buses as mobile classrooms to evade stationary surveillance—and proved that no constitutional title could shield corrupt officials from criminal handcuffs.

For the 3.7 lakh candidates who endured the trauma of December 24, the memory of that predawn highway raid at Bekariya remains an enduring symbol: of an examination system pushed to the brink of collapse, and rescued only through the vigilance of honest police officers and the relentless demand of the public for untainted merit.

Chronological Case Timeline

Sources & Further Reading

1. Rajasthan Public Service Commission (RPSC), Ajmer — Official Press Release on Immediate Cancellation of Senior Teacher Grade-II (General Knowledge - Group C) Examination Scheduled for December 24, 2022, Ajmer, December 24, 2022. https://rpsc.rajasthan.gov.in
2. Rajasthan Police Special Operations Group (SOG) / Udaipur Police — First Information Report (FIR No. 421/2022, Sukher/Bekariya PS) and Special Case Chargesheet against Babulal Katara, Suresh Dhaka, Bhupendra Saran & Ors, under IPC Sections 420, 120-B, Rajasthan Public Examination (Measures for Prevention of Unfair Means in Recruitment) Act, 2022, and PC Act, December 2022 – April 2023. https://police.rajasthan.gov.in
3. Enforcement Directorate (ED) — Provisional Attachment Orders under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) against Syndicate Members and RPSC Functionaries in Rajasthan Teacher Paper Leak Case, Jaipur Zonal Office, June 2023. https://enforcementdirectorate.gov.in
4. NDTV — Rajasthan Cancels 2nd Grade Teacher Exam After Bus Intercepted with Solvers and 49 Candidates, Harsha Kumari Singh, December 24, 2022. https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/rajasthan-rpsc-paper-leak-bus-intercepted-3635124
5. The Hindu — Sitting RPSC Member Babulal Katara Arrested in Teacher Exam Paper Leak Case by Rajasthan SOG, Mohammed Iqbal, April 19, 2023. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/sitting-rpsc-member-arrested-in-rajasthan-teacher-paper-leak/article66753476.ece
6. The Times of India — Jaipur Development Authority Bulldozes Adhigam Coaching Building Over Paper Leak Link, Jaipur Bureau, January 10, 2023. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/jaipur/jda-demolishes-coaching-centre-of-rpsc-paper-leak-mastermind/articleshow/96865241.cms
7. Hindustan Times — Key RPSC Paper Leak Accused Bhupendra Saran Held at Bengaluru Airport After 2-Month Manhunt, Sachin Saini, February 24, 2023. https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/key-rpsc-paper-leak-accused-bhupendra-saran-held-at-bengaluru-airport-101677221045214.html
8. The Indian Express — Moving Classroom: Inside the Luxury Bus Where Candidates Memorized Leaked RPSC Teacher Paper Along Rajasthan Highway, Hamza Khan, December 25, 2022. https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/jaipur/moving-classroom-how-a-bus-on-rajasthan-highway-held-the-answers-to-rpsc-leak-8343112/