diff --git a/datafusion/physical-plan/src/sorts/index.rs b/datafusion/physical-plan/src/sorts/index.rs
deleted file mode 100644
index 29441e3f1fc5..000000000000
--- a/datafusion/physical-plan/src/sorts/index.rs
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,61 +0,0 @@
-// Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
-// or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
-// distributed with this work for additional information
-// regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
-// to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
-// "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
-// with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
-//
-//   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
-//
-// Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
-// software distributed under the License is distributed on an
-// "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
-// KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
-// specific language governing permissions and limitations
-// under the License.
-
-/// A `RowIndex` identifies a specific row in a logical stream.
-///
-/// Each stream is identified by an `stream_idx` and is formed from a
-/// sequence of RecordBatches batches, each of which is identified by
-/// a unique `batch_idx` within that stream.
-///
-/// This is used by `SortPreservingMergeStream` to identify which
-/// the order of the tuples in the final sorted output stream.
-///
-/// ```text
-/// ┌────┐ ┌────┐ ┌────┐           RecordBatch
-/// │    │ │    │ │    │
-/// │ C1 │ │... │ │ CN │◀─────── (batch_idx = 0)
-/// │    │ │    │ │    │
-/// └────┘ └────┘ └────┘
-/// ┌────┐ ┌────┐ ┌────┐           RecordBatch
-/// │    │ │    │ │    │
-/// │ C1 │ │... │ │ CN │◀─────── (batch_idx = 1)
-/// │    │ │    │ │    │
-/// └────┘ └────┘ └────┘
-/// ┌────┐
-/// │    │         ...
-/// │ C1 │
-/// │    │        ┌────┐           RecordBatch
-/// └────┘        │    │
-///               │ CN │◀────── (batch_idx = M-1)
-///               │    │
-///               └────┘
-///
-///"Stream"s each with           Stream N has M
-///   a potentially              RecordBatches
-///different number of
-///   RecordBatches
-/// ```
-#[derive(Debug, Clone)]
-#[deprecated(since = "46.0.0", note = "unused and will be removed in the future")]
-pub struct RowIndex {
-    /// The index of the stream (uniquely identifies the stream)
-    pub stream_idx: usize,
-    /// The index of the batch within the stream's VecDequeue.
-    pub batch_idx: usize,
-    /// The row index within the batch
-    pub row_idx: usize,
-}