Mumbai, Jan 12 (IANS): The Indian stock market rose to new highs in the afternoon session of trade on Tuesday backed by bullish RIL stocks, after a choppy trade initially.

Both the BSE Sensex and the Nifty50 on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) rose above the psychological levels of 49,500 and 14,500 points, respectively. The BSE Sensex touched a new all-time high of 49,569.14 points while the Nifty50 hit a new high of 14,590.65 points.

The market was supported by gains in the heavyweight stocks of Reliance Industries (RIL) and HDFC.

RIL shares, which have largely been subdued in the past few months, surged over 3 per cent on Tuesday.

On the BSE, RIL shares closed at Rs 1,956.65, higher by Rs 59.65, or 3.14 per cent, from their previous close.

RIL stocks surged even after Amazon wrote to SEBI Chairman Ajay Tyagi urging the regulator not to give no-objection to the Future Retail transaction with Reliance as the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) has constituted an arbitral tribunal.

Healthy buying was witnessed in energy, oil and gas, auto and telecom stocks, while consumer durables, capital goods and FMCG stocks fell.

Sensex closed at 49,517.11, higher by 247.79 points, or 0.50 per cent, from its previous close of 49,269.32 points.

Nifty50 settled at its record closing level of 14,563.45, higher by 78.70 points, or 0.54 per cent, from its previous close.

The top gainers on the Sensex were State Bank of India, Bharti Airtel and Reliance Industries. The major losers were Asian Paints, Titan Company and Hindustan Unilever.