PermissionDeniedException when accessing work item using plain java api

I am using plain java api to access work items and its history. I am able to get the history states and the dates the states were changed. It is working fine but whenever a specific work item is accessed let say Work Item 99999, I am getting the error below:

com.ibm.team.repository.common.PermissionDeniedException: CRJAZ1319E Read access is not permitted. The user, <user id>, tried to read one or more items that have the following type: WorkItem
 at com.ibm.team.repository.client.internal.ItemManager.internalFetchState(ItemManager.java:1863)
 at com.ibm.team.repository.client.internal.ItemManager.access$2(ItemManager.java:1832)
 at com.ibm.team.repository.client.internal.ItemManager$AbstractStore.retrieveItem(ItemManager.java:197)
 at com.ibm.team.repository.client.internal.ItemManager$StateStore.fetchItem(ItemManager.java:498)
 at com.ibm.team.repository.client.internal.ItemManager.fetchCompleteState(ItemManager.java:1017)

The userid that i am using to access the work items have Administrator role - both on the project area and all team areas. I also checked Work Item 99999 and its history thru the web client but I can't find any difference with other work items. Any idea why am I getting PermissionDeniedException just for that specific work item?