India, Sept. 27 -- It's now the turn of Uttar Pradesh's judiciary to censure those who leave behind paan stains.

A high court judge issued an unusual directive this week banning saliva-stained legal documents from his courtroom after noting, in terse words now part of judicial record, that such habit was "not only disgusting and condemnable" but showed "the lack of basic civic sense."

Justice Shree Prakash Singh of the Allahabad High Court's Lucknow bench took the extraordinary step on September 22 after observing that morning that "more than ten petitions/applications" submitted to his court bore tell-tale "reddish colour saliva" marks from fingers used to turn pages.

The directive comes just months after a similar hygiene crisis rock...