Four convicts in the 2012 Delhi gang-rape and murder case will be hanged on January 22 at 7am in Tihar jail, a Delhi court said on Tuesday.

Additional sessions judge Satish Kumar Arora issued the death warrants against Mukesh, 32, Pawan Gupta, 25, Vinay Sharma, 26, and Akshay Kumar Singh, 31.

The prosecution said there was no application by any of the convicts pending before any court or the President right now and the review petition of all the convicts was dismissed by the Supreme Court.

Urging the court to issue the death warrants, the prosecution said: “In between the issuance and the execution of death warrants, if the convicts want to file curative petitions, they can do so.”

The victim, a 23-year-old paramedical student, 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 road. She died on December 29, 2012 at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore.

The counsel for two of the convicts — Mukesh and Vinay — said they were in the process of filing a curative petition in the Supreme Court.

A curative petition normally has to be filed within 90 days but the time limit can be extended by the Chief Justice of India using his discretion.

When the hearing commenced, advocate M.L. Sharma appeared before the court and said that he was representing Mukesh.

However, amicus curiae Vrinda Grover, who on the last date was appointed by the court to represent Mukesh, said Sharma had no authority to represent him.

The court heard the arguments from both of them and directed Sharma to produce the vakalatnama (the document empowering a lawyer) showing that Mukesh authorised him.

After the court reserved the order for 3.30pm on the issuance of death warrants, Mukesh’s mother entered the court room in tears and urged the court to show mercy. The court refused to entertain her request.

She told reporters outside the courtroom that her son was framed because he was poor.

The court interacted with all the convicts through video conferencing from Tihar jail. The media was not allowed inside the video conferencing room.

After the court passed the order, the lawyers and family members of the convicts came out and informed the media of the court’s order.

The victim’s parents said they were satisfied with the order.

The trial court had earlier directed Tihar jail authorities to seek within a week response from the four death row convicts on whether they were filing mercy pleas against their executions with the President of India.

One of the six accused in the case, Ram Singh, allegedly committed suicide in Tihar. A juvenile was convicted by a juvenile justice board and was released from a reformation home after serving a three-year term.