# Sections 12 and 13 — Pro Rata Duty; Gender and Number
## Section 12 — Duty to be taken pro rata
Where any duty of customs or excise (or duty of a similar nature) is leviable on a given quantity by weight, measure or value of any goods or merchandise, a like duty is leviable at the same rate on any greater or lesser quantity.
### Plain-English meaning
The statutory rate scales proportionately up or down. A duty fixed for 1 kg becomes 5 × that duty for 5 kg, and half of it for 500 grams.
### Illustration (from the syllabus)
If a company has 100 shares outstanding and declares a dividend of ₹2 per share, the total dividend pool is ₹200. Each shareholder receives a pro rata share of that pool based on their holding. The total cannot exceed ₹200 — and the per-shareholder amount is calculated proportionately.
(The Section is primarily about customs/excise duty, but the pro rata concept it embeds applies wherever statute uses a rate-based levy on quantity.)
## Section 13 — Gender and number
In all Central Acts and Regulations, unless context requires otherwise:
1. Words importing the masculine gender shall include females.
2. Words in the singular shall include the plural, and vice versa.
So if a statute uses 'he', it normally also covers 'she'; if it uses 'company', it can cover 'companies'.
### Crucial qualifications
- Succession law caution: The rule is applied carefully in succession matters. Courts have held that 'male descendants' does not automatically include female descendants — the social and legislative context is heavily weighted.
- Gender-specific statutes: If an Act is meant for a specific gender (e.g., the Maternity Benefits Act), the gender-neutralising rule does not apply.
- Specific-gender words override the presumption: Where a common-gender word exists but the legislature has consciously used a specific-gender term, the General Clauses presumption is rebutted. Hence the word 'bullocks' has been held not to include 'cows'.