There is a big relief for the consumer of mobile services when the Centre on Thursday told Supreme Court that the deadline for linking “all services” to Aadhaar has been extended to March 31, 2018, and said the court may consider extending the last date for linking the unique identity to mobile phone numbers also till that date. The court reserved its orders for Friday.Attorney General K K Venugopal told a five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra that a judicial order was needed to extend the deadline for linking mobile phones to Aadhaar as an earlier order of the apex court on February 6, 2017 had directed that a government scheme to verify phone numbers using Aadhaar be completed in one year. The bench was hearing a clutch of petitions challenging the Constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Act and related notifications linking it to various government schemes.Opposing any stay on the linking process, the government also told the bench comprising Justices A K Sikri, A M Khanwilkar, D Y Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan that the unique identity must be allowed to remain mandatory for opening bank accounts.