New Delhi: The March 31 deadline for linking Aadhaar to various government schemes, mobile phones and bank accounts can be extended, government conveyed to the Supreme Court.

Attorney General K.K. Venugopal told the Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra hearing a bunch of petitions against the Aadhaar law that the centre had extended the deadline in the past too and it can do so again.

The petitioners said the deadline was nearing and the case was unlikely to be decided by March 31.

On December 15 last year, the top court had directed the extension of deadline till March 31 for the linking of Aadhaar with bank accounts and mobile phones.

The constitution bench is hearing challenges to the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar scheme on the touchstone of the fundamental right to privacy on a bunch of petitions by former Karnataka High Court Judge K.S. Puttuswamy, Magsaysay awardee Shanta Sinha, feminist researcher Kalyani Sen Menon and others.

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Korba (Chhattisgarh)(PTI): A 19-year-old woman was allegedly raped by five men, including the driver of police's emergency response service vehicle, in Chhattisgarh's Korba district, police said on Saturday.

Two accused, including the driver of Dial 112 police helpline vehicle, have been taken into custody, they said.

The incident took place on January 8 night under the Bankimongra police station limits when one of the five accused known to the victim called her, a police official here said.

The accused took the girl to a deserted house in Bankimongra, where the driver and four others allegedly took turns to rape her, he said.

After the incident, the accused fled the spot, leaving the victim in an unconscious condition. The victim later managed to reach her home and narrated the ordeal to her family members, who immediately took her to the medical college hospital and later informed the police, he said.

The case was initially registered as a zero FIR at the Civil Lines police station on Friday and later transferred to Bankimongra police station for investigation, he said.

Korba Superintendent of Police Siddharth Tiwari, two accused, including the private driver of 'Dial 112' service have been detained in the case and efforts are on to trace three other accused.