NEW DELHI: The Union Cabinet on Friday cleared a Bill to repeal 71 laws which have outlived their utility in the statute books, officials said.

Out of the 71 laws, 65 are amendments to principal Acts and six are principal laws.

At least one law proposed to be repealed is of the British era, the officials said.

The proposed repeal and amendment bill is not aimed at striking off colonial laws but to remove Acts which have outlived their utility, an official said.

"Once an amendment is passed by Parliament, it gets subsumed in the principal law. It then only clutters the statute books," an official explained.

So far, 1,562 old archaic laws have been repealed.