Corporation used to exercise control and supervision over the work performed by the Contractors. Maintaining cleanliness and handling the solid waste are one of the mandatory functions of the Municipal Corporation under the provisions of Section 63 of the Maharashtra Municipal Corporation Act, 1949. Thus, there is a statutory duty imposed upon the Municipal Corporation to collect, transport and dispose of the solid waste generated within its jurisdiction. Merely because the Municipal Corporation employs a Contractor to collect and transport the solid waste generated within its jurisdiction, the same would not absolve it from performing its statutory duties. It therefore can never happen that after contracting out the function of collection and transportation of municipal solid waste, Municipal Corporation would depend entirely on performance of the work by a Contractor. Though a contract may contain stipulations to punish a Contractor for failure to perform the work properly, but on account of statutory duty enshrined upon the Municipal Corporation, it is bound to supervise the overall work performed by the Contractor. However, supervision of performance of work by a Contractor cannot be mixed with the issue of supervision of work of an individual worker. As per test (vi), ‘Control and Supervision’ would include determination of the question ‘whether there exists complete control and supervision’. In Kirloskar Brothers , the sixth test is included to mean ‘Who can tell the employee the way in which the work should be done?’. In short, who has direct control over the
