Mumbai: The market continued its slide to third straight session and ended down by another 51 points as erratic monsoon coupled with news of drought-like conditions in some parts of the country induced fresh sell-off even as day-traders and arbitrageurs returned to normal business.

Operators and domestic mutual funds reportedly pressed sales at the prevailing price levels despite encouraging first quarter results announced by IT major Infosys Technologies, which led a moderate rally in software stocks.

Opening on a promising note at 4911.22, the BSE Benchmark 30-share Index gradually moved downwards to the intra-day low at 4835.34 and later ended at 4848.30 as against yesterday's close of 4898.49, a net fall of 50.69 points or 1.03 per cent.

Though there was no immediate outcome from the meeting with Finance Minister P Chidambaram on the issue of turnover tax, broker representatives seemed to be satisfied over the patient hearing where they made suggestions including their exemption from the ambit of the proposed transaction tax.

Investors resorted to heavy sell-off in the light of official reports on drought-like conditions prevailing in some parts of the country, brokers said.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs), which reported positive inflow of Rs 112 crore on Monday, were believed to be buyers in select blue chip counters, particularly technology shares, brokers added.

RIL, Tata Motors, ONGC, BHEL, Bajaj Auto, HDFC, ITC, HLL and Grasim suffered a sharp setback on selling pressure.

However, Infosys Tech, Satyam Computers, Wipro, SBI, GACL and Tisco recorded moderate gains.