A youth was caught in Malda on Friday for writing undergraduate exam papers in place of his wife by counterfeiting her admit card.

Siddhartha Sankar Das, 25, who was appearing for the exam at Chanchal College, was detained by the college authorities and handed over to Chanchal police station. Subsequently, Das was arrested.

College sources said the accused counterfeited the admit card of his wife Pushpa Chowdhury Das, a student of Manikchak College.

He reached Chanchal College, the venue of the exam for undergraduates appearing in the fifth-semester exam under the Gour Banga University, on his wife's behalf.

“Almost an hour after the exam started, teachers registering the attendance of examinees were surprised to see that the photograph on the admit card did not match the one printed on the attendance sheet. While the attendance sheet had a girl's photo, the admit card bore the youth's photo,” said a teacher of the college.

The youth claimed he was the examinee. A copy of the admit card was emailed to varsity for perusal and it was found that the original admit card was issued for Pushpa, supposed to appear for her Bengali exam on Friday.

“She wrote two previous papers. But when she fell ill, her husband decided to appear in the exam and counterfeited the admit card,” said a police officer.

Das, police sources said, is a graduate but works as a daily-rated worker.

Ajit Biswas, the teacher-in-charge of Chanchal College said the youth desperately argued in a bid to prove that he was a genuine candidate. “However, after the varsity authority declared his admit card to be fake, he admitted to the fraud,” Biswas said.

Biswarup Sarkar, the controller of examinations at the varsity, said the college authorities were directed to hand over the fake examinee to the police.

The youth will be produced in court on Saturday, a police officer said.