With folded hands and tears in his eyes, Supreme Court judge Justice A R Lakshmanan today expressed his inability to hear a review petition filed by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav’s son in a case that involves his father and his family’s alleged disproportionate assets.

Just days ago, the court had rejected Mulayam’s plea that the CBI be kept out and that the probe be kept on hold until after the UP Assembly elections.

Justice Lakshmanan, five days before his retirement, told the court how he was in “pain” after receiving an “anonymous” letter whose contents, his fellow judge Justice Altamas Kabir, called “heinous.”

The Indian Express has learnt that the one-page letter, received at the judge’s residence this morning, openly threatens the judge by alleging wrongdoing. “I will not hear the case,” the judge’s announcement came soon after the petition filed by Akhilesh Yadav came up before the bench. “I have got an anonymous letter,” Justice Lakshmanan said. “Because of which I am very much in pain...In seventeen and a half years of my career, I have never gone through such a thing. I am very much pained. The contents of the letter are such that my wife and I are very much disturbed.”

Even though senior counsel Mukul Rohtagi and Soli Sorabjee pleaded that he should hear the petition, Justice Lakshmanan said that he would not. “I am not in a mood to hear this case,” he said.