Federal government sets diyat at over Rs19.35m for FY2026-27

ISLAMABAD: The federal government has fixed blood money, or diyat, at Rs19,352,390 for fiscal year 2026-27, raising the amount by about 97pc from the previous year as silver prices climbed.

A notification issued by the Ministry of Finance set the amount under Section 323 of the Pakistan Penal Code, 1860. Under the law, diyat is compensation for murder payable by an offender to the heirs of a victim.

The notified figure reflects the value of 30,630 grams of silver, which serves as the statutory benchmark for determining the minimum amount. For FY2025-26, the diyat value had been set at Rs9,828,670.

The amount has risen sharply in recent years. It stood at Rs6,757,902 for FY2023-24, after having been fixed at Rs4,318,524 in FY2022-23.

Section 323 requires courts to determine diyat in line with the injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Holy Quran and Sunnah, while also considering the financial position of the convict and the victim’s heirs. The provision says the amount cannot be lower than the value of 30,630 grams of silver.

The same section also requires the federal government to declare, through an official Gazette notification, the value of silver on the first day of July each year, or on another date it deems fit, for the purpose of setting diyat for that fiscal year.

In July 2025, an amendment was proposed in the Senate seeking to replace the minimum blood money threshold of 30,630 grams of silver with 2,000 grams of gold or one-fourth of the assets held by the convict.