New Delhi: A second curative petition against the death sentence awarded to the convicts in the Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case was filed in the Supreme Court on Thursday. The petition was filed on behalf of death row convict Mukesh Kumar, one of the four men sentenced to death in the case. Earlier in the day, Vinay Kumar Sharma had filed a curative petition in the apex court. A curative petition is the last legal remedy available to a convict.

On Tuesday, a Delhi court issued death warrants against Mukesh (32), Pawan Gupta (25), Vinay Kumar Sharma (26) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31) and said they will be hanged on January 22 at 7 am in Tihar jail. In his curative plea, Vinay said his young age has been erroneously rejected as a mitigating circumstance. "The petitioner's socio-economic circumstances, number of family dependants including ailing parents, good conduct in jail and probability of reformation have not been adequately considered leading to gross miscarriage of justice," the plea said.