India stock futures fall as Reliance Ind plunges

MUMBAI, June 15 (Reuters) - India stock futures ended down almost 2 percent on Monday, pulled down by heavyweight Reliance Industries RELInsc1, which fell after a court ruling on gas supply was not in the energy group's favour.

"The fall was mainly because of what happened in the RIL-RNRL (Reliance Natural) case, that resulted in a fall of almost 8 percent (for RIL)," said Siddharth Bhamre, head of investment advisory at Angel Broking.

Reliance Industries futures ended down 7.58 percent after the Bombay High Court directed the firm to supply gas to former group company, Reliance Natural Resources RENRnsc1, at about half the government-approved price.

"A lot of metal and infrastructure stocks also corrected quite a bit," Bhamre added.

Profit-taking was seen in counters like Larsen & Toubro LARTnsc1, Tata Steel TISCnsc1, IVRCL Infra IVRCnsc1 and metals producer Sterlite Industries STRLnsc1, analysts said.

The June contract NIFc1 ended down 1.94 percent at 4,499.80 points, a premium of 15.8 points to the 50-share NSE spot index .NSEI, which ended 2.17 percent lower at 4,484 points.

On Friday the futures index closed at a premium of 5.5 points to the spot.

"Today there was more of cash-based selling in some counters that has led to rise in premium, rather than any formation of long positions," Bhamre said.

"We feel the market is touching a range with 4,300 on the lower side and 4,700 on higher side. We are not shorting this market as there is ample liquidity still standing." (Reporting by Aniruddha Basu; Editing by Harish Nambiar)