diff --git a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/launch/Locator.java b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/launch/Locator.java
index fce9beb52..3dc756033 100644
--- a/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/launch/Locator.java
+++ b/src/main/org/apache/tools/ant/launch/Locator.java
@@ -155,11 +155,6 @@ public final class Locator {
         // do that (just "foo.xml" is correct) but for compatibility we special-case
         // things when the path is not absolute, and fall back to the old parsing behavior.
         if (uriClazz != null && uri.startsWith("file:/")) {
-            try {
-                uri = encodeUri(uri);
-            } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
-                //leave as-is?
-            }
             try {
                 java.lang.reflect.Method createMethod = uriClazz.getMethod("create", new Class[] {String.class});
                 Object uriObj = createMethod.invoke(null, new Object[] {uri});