The Centre on Wednesday extended the deadline for citizens to link their Aadhaar number with welfare schemes by three months to June 30, ANI reported. The announcement follows the Narendra Modi-led government’s decision on Tuesday to extend the deadline for citizens to link their Aadhaar number with their Permanent Account Number to June 30.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court had rejected a request to extend the March 31 deadline to link Aadhaar numbers with various government welfare schemes.

On March 13, the Supreme Court had indefinitely extended the March 31 deadline to link Aadhaar with bank accounts and mobile numbers. A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra had said there will be no deadline for mandatory linking of Aadhaar until the court pronounces its judgement on a batch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the biometric identification programme and its enabling law, which it is currently hearing.

Last year, the Centre had made linking Aadhaar with PAN compulsory to file income tax returns and for any bank transaction over Rs 50,000.