New Delhi:  A five-Judge Bench of the Supreme Court (SC) of India will hear the curative pleas filed by two of the four convicted in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape case on Jan. 14.

This Bench will consider the petitions filed by convicts Mukesh and Vinay Kumar in chambers. All of the four remaining convicts are currently lodged in separate cells in Delhi’s Tihar Jail.

Earlier this month, Additional Sessions Judge Satish Kumar Arora signed the death warrants of the four convicts. In its order, the Patiala House Court decided at 7 am on Jan. 22 as the time and date for the execution. 

The single-Judge Bench was hearing a plea filed by the parents of Nirbhaya, a 23-year-old paramedical student who was brutally gang-raped by five men and a boy on the night of  Dec. 16, 2012.

This Bench of the Apex Court that will hear the curative pleas will comprise Justice N.V. Ramana, Justice Arun Mishra, Justice R.F. Nariman, Justice R. Banumati and Justice Ashok Bhushan. The pleas were filed by amicus curiae Vrinda Grover on behalf of convicts Mukesh and Akshay. In the petition, the two convicts have sought a stay on the Jan. 22 execution as well as a more lenient sentence and an open hearing.

Grover had argued before the Additional Sessions Judge on Tuesday that mental assessments of all of the four convicts need to be conducted before handing down the date of their execution.

She had also claimed that one of the convicts has alleged that the case against him was built on the narrative of a ‘media trial.’

The fifth accused in the case, Ram Singh, had committed suicide in his Tihar Jail Cell in 2013. 

Meanwhile, the sixth accused was sent to a juvenile correction centre and released after serving time of three years owing to him being a minor.