A bench of five-judges: N V Ramana, Arun Mishra, R F Nariman, R Banumathi and Ashok Bhushan of the Supreme Court, has been fixed to hear the curative petitions at 1:45 pm.
The petitions have been filed by Vinay Sharma (26) and Mukesh Kumar (32), two of the four men currently on death row in the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case. Curative petitions are decided in chambers by the judges and is the last legal remedy availale to the convicts.
If the Supreme Court rejects the curative petitions filed by the convicts, the two will still have a last option to seek mercy before the President.
The five-judge bench that will hear Vinay's and Mukesh's curative petitions includes two judges - Justice Banumathi and Justice Bhushan had already been part of the Supreme Court bench in 2017, when the convictions in the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case were actually upheld confirmin the death penalities of the four accused.
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Justices Banumathi and Bhushan were also part of the bench in 2018, in which review petitions filed by three of the four convicts, including Vinay and Mukesh were rejected.
Delhi court has issued 'death warrants' to all the four convicts, finalising January 22 as the day of hangings last week. Soon after the issuing of warrants, two of the four convicts filed curative petition in the Supreme Court which will be heard today.
Two of the four convicts -- Akshay Kumar Singh (31) and Pawan Gupta (25) -- have not filed curative petitions yet. All four have previously filed review petitions, which have been rejected by the Supreme Court.