A massive late surge also failed to revive the index.
Sentiment got a boost at the fag-end after the government today said the Winter Session could be advanced immediately after the Bihar polls to pass the GST bill, which it proposes to roll out from April, 2016.
Weak global cues with data showing that China's consumer inflation in August edged up more than expected from a year earlier, but producer prices fell for the 42nd straight month, signalling the risk of deflation, hit market sentiment.
The BSE Sensex after a gap down opening at 25,522.98 points continued to slide and touched a low of 25,287.50 in early trade as selling intensified in blue-chip stocks.
However, on emergence of buying towards the end it recouped most of day's losses to touch a high of 25,733.70 before ending at 25,622.17, a fall of 97.41 or 0.38 per cent.
Sensex had gathered 825.77 points in last two sessions.
The 50-share NSE Nifty, which dipped below the crucial 7,700-mark and touched a low of 7,678.50 intra-day, recovered most of the lost ground to close at 7,788.10, down 30.50 points or 0.39 per cent.
Bucking the trend were the shares of Tata Motors, BHEL, Bajaj Auto, L&T, ICICI Bank, M&M and Tata Steel.
Sectorwise, BSE consumer durables index suffered the most by falling 1.76 per cent, followed by teck 0.79 per cent, metal (0.77 pc), PSU (0.76 pc), IT (0.74 pc), realty (0.61 pc), Power (0.19 pc), oil&gas (0.17 pc) and bankex (0.13 pc).
Foreign investors sold shares worth Rs 452.13 crore yesterday, as per provisional data.
