Section 66A of the Information Technology (IT) Act is being routinely used by judges and people sent to jail despite the Supreme Court quashing the law more than two years ago, a PIL has complained, but the apex court dismissed the plea saying no fresh directives were needed.

The petition, filed a Telangana advocate, Gopala Krishna Kalanidhi, did not list the total number of persons convicted under the provision across the country. But it cited one instance of March 31 this year when a Hyderabad magistrate held an alleged offender, Dilip Kumar, guilty under the section and other laws. Kumar was sentenced to a year and fined Rs 5,000.

The plea sought a directive to the Centre to ensure that Section 66-A was repealed from all statute books and to publishers to delete the provision - struck down by the apex court on March 24, 2015, - from law books.

However, a bench of Chief Justice J.S. Khehar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, where the plea came up yesterday, was not convinced. "We have struck down the provision as unconstitutional, so where is the question of asking the government to repeal the provision from the statute?" the bench told Kalanidhi's lawyer Atulesh Kumar.