Two of the four rapists in the Nirbhaya case, whofiled the last possible legal appeal against their death sentence, drew a blankat the Supreme Court on Tuesday. A five-judge bench headed by Justice N VRamana dismissed the petition of Vinay Sharma and Mukesh after an in-chamberhearing. A mercy petition before the president is now the only option left forthe convicts, whose execution is just a week away.

TheSupreme Court has already turned down review petitions against the deathsentence from three of the convicts, and a mercy petition from a fourth hasbeen turned down.

Vinay Sharma, in his petition, had appealed for an open hearing, to eliminate what he called "systemic and political bias" against him. Execution, he had said, would destroy his entire family. The Petition further reads as, "The petitioner's father earns a meager living. The family has no savings and lives in the RK Puram Harijan Basti."

The curative petition was filed after a Delhi court issued a death warrant in the name of the convicts last week. The four men — Mukesh Singh, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Sharma, and Akshay Kumar Singh — who had raped and tortured a 23-year-old medical student in Delhi seven years ago, are to be hanged at 7 am on January 22.