Mumbai, April 27 :    Mumbai, April 27:  The proposal of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi)-appointed committee to ban carry-forward trading from July 2, sent tremors across the bourses today, as the BSE benchmark index lay mauled a 134 points. The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) sensex was grounded right from the first bell, opening with a wide downside gap of 168 points to 3389.22, as major momentum stocks met with a flurry of sale orders on the last day of the current settlement. It later dipped to a low of 3357.83, recovering only marginally to close at 3422.76, as against the previous day's close of 3557.19, a whopping loss of 134.43 points or 3.78 per cent. Broking circles affiliated to the premier bourses were highly critical of the decision to introduce rolling settlement in all specified stocks from July 2. Brokers, who were used to the carry-forward system, said Sebi's decision was disastrous and is likely to strangle the market, as volumes will decline drastically and indices will turn volatile. 'Sentiments remained negative and the outlook is very uncertain,' said Ramesh Damani, a prominent BSE broker. Volumes were extremely low at Rs 1173.32 crore, compared with yesterday's turnover of Rs 1490.13 crore. Moreover, operators were eager to get out of counters like Reliance Industries, Reliance Petroleum, Infosys Technologies and Glaxo, in view of the impending book closures in the counters from the new settlement. While foreign institutional investors (FIIs) remained mute spectators to the turbulence that brought back memories of Black Friday, domestic institutions and mutual funds, which reportedly had booked profits in the two previous sessions, made a feeble attempt to salvage the situation by picking up old economy stocks at lower levels. In the specified group, only 13 scrips, including six index counters registered moderate gains on buying by domestic financial institutions. Among the 162 losers, HFCL, Global Tele, Zee Telefilms, DSQ Software, PSI Data and Aptech were locked in the 16 per cent lower circuit filter at close. Infosys recorded the highest turnover of Rs 113.54 crore followed by Satyam Computer at Rs 104.07 crore, Reliance with Rs 76.59 crore, Wipro at Rs 73.25 crore and Digital Equipment with Rs 57.36 crore.