New Delhi: One of the convicts in the Nirbhaya rape case, Vinay Kumar Sharma, filed a curative petition before the Supreme Court on January 9, days after a Delhi court fixed the date for hanging the four convicts.
 
The Patiala house court on January 7 pronounced its judgement in the Nirbhaya case. Additional Sessions Judge Satish Kumar Arora pronounced the verdict in front of the convicts. They will be hanged at 7am on January 22.

Besides Vinay, other convicts Pawan, Akshay, and Mukesh Singh face the gallows. The court after issuing a black warrant in their name gave them two weeks' time to file both the curative and mercy petition.
 
A curative petition is the last judicial resort available for redressal of grievances. It is decided by the judges in-chamber. The mercy petition, on the other hand, is filed before the President who has the power to commute it to life imprisonment.
 

Nirbhaya case:

A 23-year-old was gang-raped and brutally assaulted on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012 inside a moving bus in south Delhi by six persons before being thrown out on the street. She died on December 29, 2012 at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore. One of the six accused in the case, Ram Singh, allegedly committed suicide in Tihar Jail.


Convicts

Four men, Pawan Gupta, Mukesh, Vinay Sharma and Akshay Kumar Singh face the gallows after being held guilty of Nirbhaya's gang-rape, torture and killing.