The overall trading sentiment was also overshadowed by a terror attack in France.
Technology stocks suffered their biggest drop in recent past and their worst sell-off this year so far after Infosys slashed its annual sales forecast, despite a 13 per cent rise in net profit a day after TCS, India's biggest outsourcer, reported 9.9 per cent jump in net profit for the first quarter.
However, strong buying activity in rate sensitive counters in the face of robust capital inflows amid hopes of the GST Bill getting passed in the Upper House of Parliament prevented the market from falling further.
European stocks were trading weak impacted by the attack in France.
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The 50-share Nifty opened almost flat at 8,565.45 and fluctuated between 8,594 and 8,510.05 before concluding at 8,541.40, showing a loss of 23.60 points, or 0.28 per cent.
Among the sectoral indices, Nifty IT registered the biggest loss, falling over 440 points or nearly 4 per cent.
Shares of IT majors Infosys and TCS closed 8.82 per cent and 3.04 per cent down at Rs 1072.55 and Rs 2445.35, respectively with heavy volumes.
However, auto rose 0.98 per cent, followed by metal (0.82 per cent), infra (0.66 per cent), Nifty Bank (0.48 per cent), Private Bank (0.28 per cent) and pharma (0.15 per cent).
The key laggards included ICICI Bank, Wipro, Tech Mahindra, Aurobindo Pharma, Kotak Mahindra, HCL Tech, NTPC, Coal India, Hero MotoCorp, Power Grid and SBI.
Notable gainers were HDFC Bank, HDFC, Tata Motors, L&T, Bosch, Bharti Airtel, Reliance, Idea, Tata Steel and M&M.
A total of 1,072 stocks declined, 532 advanced, while 67 were unchanged.
A total of 11,607.67 lakh shares changed hands in 86,36,002 trades. The market capitalisation of NSE stood at Rs 104,08,430 crore.