A five-judge Supreme Court Bench, headed by Justice NV Ramana, will on January 14 take up curative petitions filed by two of the four convicts awaiting the gallows in the 2012 Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case.

The Bench, which also includes Justice Arun Mishra, Justice Rohinton Nariman, Justice R Banumathi and Justice Ashok Bhushan, will take up the curative petitions of Vinay Sharma and Mukesh at 1.45 pm on Tuesday.

Delhi Additional Sessions Judge Satish Kumar Arora had on January 7 ordered that the four convicts Mukesh, Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh be hanged after the prosecution said there was no plea pending before any court or the President at this juncture and the review petitions of each one of them had already been dismissed by the Supreme Court.

Faced with imminent execution, Vinay and Mukesh had on Thursday filed curative petitions, contending that their socio-economic background was not taken into account.

They have sought stay of the death warrant issued by a Delhi court for execution of all four convicts in Tihar Jail at 7 am on January 22. Vinay pleaded that his young age at the time of the crime was ignored while sentencing him to death. Vinay submitted that his parents were old and extremely poor, and his entire family would be destroyed after his execution.

After dismissal of curative petition, a convict can file mercy plea before the President. Even the dismissal of mercy petition can be challenged before the top court.