Indian shares fell for a third consecutive session on Tuesday to mark their lowest close in nearly two weeks, as interest-rate sensitive stocks declined after the central bank held the repo rate steady, while boosting banks' liquidity to persuade them to lower lending rates.

Stocks continued their retreat from record highs hit last week after the Reserve Bank of India kept its policy repo rate unchanged at 7.75 per cent, leaving its next reduction probably until after the government presents its annual budget at the end of this month.

Falls also tracked selling by overseas investors worth Rs 630 crore on Monday, after 11 continuous days of buying and a total of $2.9 billion of stock buying so far this year, provisional exchange and regulatory data showed.

The benchmark BSE index shed 122.13 points or 0.42 per cent to 29,000.14, while the broader NSE index ended down by 40.05 points or 0.46 per cent at 8,756.55, marking their lowest close since January 21.

Among BSE sectoral indices, banking index fell the most by 2.61 per cent, followed by realty 1.43 per cent, infrastructure and healthcare 0.92 per cent each. On the other hand, oil & gas index was the star-performer and was up 1.99 per cent, followed by FMCG 1.06 per cent, metal 0.8 per cent and consumer durables 0.5 per cent.

Major Sensex gainers were SSLT 6.23%, Bharti Airtel 3.42%, Reliance 3.25%, ONGC 2.64% and TCS 1.67%, while the top five losers were Axis Bank 4.95%, Tata Power 4.12%, Bajaj Auto 3.74%, M&M 3.52% and HDFC 2.98%.

European stocks rose early on Tuesday, lifted by hopes for an agreement on the Greek debt standoff after the country's new government dropped calls for a write-off of its foreign debt and proposed swapping debt for growth-linked bonds.

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