KOCHI: A high court judge, on Tuesday, said he had received a letter, threatening to burn him alive if he ordered to hand over the Kothamangalam church to the Orthodox faction.Justice P B Suresh Kumar revealed the receipt of the threat while pulling up Ernakulam district collector for not implementing the court’s order.Justice Kumar said he won’t mind being burnt alive, but the court’s order should be implemented. The court registry has handed over the letter to the police.Earlier, the court summoned district collector S Suhas and criticized him for not implementing its order to take over Kothamangalam church and hand it over to the Orthodox faction.Justice Kumar criticized the collector after noticing his absence despite a directive on a contempt of court case filed by the Orthodox faction. The contempt case was filed by Orthodox priest Thomas Paul Ramban through advocate Roshen D Alexander.During the morning session, the contempt of court case was listed as the first one to be heard. On noticing the collector’s absence, the judge directed that he must be present within five minutes.The collector reached the court after around 15 minutes, and explained that earnest efforts were taken to implement the order but it failed as one of the factions opposed and some of them threatened to commit suicide if it was implemented. He also sought two more months to implement the order.Pointing out that there was no stay on the order, the court said it could not allow the time the collector had sought.The court also criticized that even though the collector was liable to implement the order, he was not viewing the matter seriously. Delaying the implementation of the court’s order by referring to suicide threats was equal to showing disrespect to the court. Though many days had passed since the order was issued, the state government had not done anything to implement it, the court said.Further, the court said physical strength of some had become successful now and the inability to implement the court’s order was a shame for the state police. It shows the breakdown of law and order machinery.Non-implementation of the court’s orders would result in people losing faith in the judiciary and would lead to collapse of the justice-delivery system, the court said. As the state government and the police had failed to implement the order, the court could direct central forces to carry out the order. It could also jail the collector as part of contempt of court proceedings, the judge said, while reserving the contempt of court case for pronouncing orders.