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After issuance of death warrants against them by a court in New Delhi on Tuesday, the only legal remedy left with the four convicts in the appalling 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case is to approach the Supreme Court with curative petitions to seek relief from capital punishment.
The convicts can also avail the constitutional remedy of filing mercy pleas with the President.
Advocate A P Singh, representing Akshay, Pawan and Vinay, said he will soon approach the apex court with their curative petition and will also seek a stay on the death warrants issued by the trial court till the disposal of the curative plea.
A curative petition is the last legal recourse available to a person and it is generally considered in-chamber.
A Delhi court on Tuesday issued death warrants of the four convicts -- Mukesh (32), Vinay Sharma (26), Akshay Singh (31) and Pawan Gupta (25) -- ordering that they be hanged on January 22 at 7am in Tihar Jail.
The top court had on December 18 last year dismissed a plea filed by Akshay Singh seeking review of the 2017 judgement upholding his death penalty.
On July 9, 2018, the apex court had dismissed the review pleas filed by the other three convicts -- Mukesh, Pawan Gupta and Vinay Sharma -- in the case, saying no grounds have been made out by them for review of the 2017 verdict.
The 23-year-old paramedic student, later referred to as Nirbhaya, was gang raped and brutally assaulted on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012 in a moving bus in south Delhi by six people before being thrown out on the road.
She died on December 29, 2012 at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore.