A mercy petition filed by Mukesh Singh, one of thefour convicts in the Nirbhaya case – was forwarded to President Ram Nath Kovindby the Union Home Ministry with a recommendation to reject it. The petition,which represents the convict's last possible appeal before his execution iscarried out, was filed on Tuesday after the Supreme Court dismissed curativepleas filed by him and Vinay Sharma, another convict.

Ahome ministry official while quoted by news agency PTI said, "The HomeMinistry has forwarded the mercy petition of Mukesh Singh to the President. Theministry has reiterated the recommendation of the Lieutenant Governor of Delhifor its rejection."

Vinay Sharma, Mukesh Singh, Akshay Kumar Singh, and Pawan Gupta were to be hanged next Wednesday at 7 am in Delhi's Tihar jail, the trial court judge had declared last week, signing a death warrant seven years after a young medical student was gang-raped on a moving bus, tortured and killed in December 2012.

However, on Thursday, five days before the scheduledexecution date, Tihar Jail officials asked for a new date, saying theexecutions could not take place till after all mercy petitions filed by theconvicts are settled.

The three other convicts have yet to file theirrespective mercy petitions.

Mukesh Singh and Vinay Sharma's last legal appealagainst their death sentence — a curative petition — was dismissed by afive-judge bench of the Supreme Court on Wednesday last.

Following the rejection of a mercy petition, a convict is given a 14-day period of reprieve before the execution is carried out.

Nirbhaya's mother, fearing more delay in theexecution of the four men, said she had been going to many courts for years butwanted justice now. "If they have rights, we too have the right to justicefor our daughter who was killed seven years ago," she said.