Ending the 7-year wait for justice, a Delhi court on Tuesday issued death warrants against all the four convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya rape and murder case.

Akshay Thakur Singh, Mukesh, Pawan Gupta and Vinay Sharma, who were found guilty in the rape and murder of a Delhi medical student, will be hanged at 7 am on January 22.

During the hearing, the prosecution said that there was no application pending before any court or the President right now by any of the convicts and the review petitions of all the convicts were dismissed by the Supreme Court as well.

Delhi’s Patiala House Court had on December 18 declined to give death warrants to the four convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case allowing them time to access their legal remedies.

The court had directed Tihar Jail authorities to issue a fresh notice to the convicts to file mercy petitions and adjourned the matter for January 7.

During the course of hearing, the prosecution had filed an application seeking issuance of death warrants against the convicts.

The public prosecutor had argued in the court that pendency of mercy petitions or the fact that convicts want to file mercy petitions does not preclude the court from issuing a death warrant.

The Supreme Court has already confirmed death penalty for all the four convicts. The court found no merit in conducting the review and upheld the capital punishment given by the trial court and confirmed by the Delhi High Court in the case.

One of the accused in the case, Ram Singh, had allegedly committed suicide at Tihar Jail in Delhi.

A juvenile, who was among the accused, was convicted by a juvenile justice board. He was released from a reformation home after serving a three-year term.

A 23-year-old paramedic student, who came to be known as Nirbhaya, was gang-raped on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012 inside a running bus in south Delhi by six persons and severely assaulted before being thrown out on the road. She succumbed to injuries on December 29 at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore.

Earlier in December, Chief Justice of India SA Bobde had recused himself from hearing a petition in the Nirbhaya rape and murder case as his nephew Arjun Bobde appeared for the victim.

The court then constituted another bench to hear the review petition.

Earlier, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice Sharad Arvind Bobde also comprising Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice R Banumathi was hearing the case.