Justice Kurian Joseph, one of the four judges who held the unprecedented press conference earlier this year to flag their concerns about the functioning of the top court, today told NDTV they took the decision after being sure that then Chief Justice Dipak Misra was "under an external influence". It had become a question of the independence of the judiciary, protection of democracy and the institution of the Supreme Court, he said. "We are sure that the Chief Justice was not taking decisions on his own. We found that there had been external influences on the Chief Justice of India," Justice Kurian Joseph, who retired from the top court last week, told NDTV. "It was not a question of one or two decisions, but generally... We found in the way things were being done," he added.