JSF 1.2: javax.el.ELException ANT build error

The evaluateExpressionGet method below:
PageListing pl = (PageListing) context.getApplication().evaluateExpressionGet(context, "#{pageList}", PageListing.class); 
PageListing pl = (PageListing) context.getApplication().evaluateExpressionGet(context, "#{pageList}", PageListing.class);
 
generates this error:
cannot access javax.el.ELException  
class file for javax.el.ELException not found 
cannot access javax.el.ELException
class file for javax.el.ELException not found
 
I'm using Tomcat 6.0.20 and JSF Mojarra 1.2_13. What Java class am I missing? Does anyone know?

I know this post is extremely old but would you remember how you were able to solve this any information would help

Any message thread that hasn't been used in over a year stands a good chance that the people who participated have moved on to other projects, and often to other jobs. So they may not even be listening any more.

There are 2 likely suspects in problems like the one mentioned. First, older J2EE servers (such as Tomcat 5) didn't include EL support at the server level. Secondly, the EL and JSF expression handlers went through some fairly radical changes in the past few years. Which is one reason why it's better to avoid coding things this way - stuff broke when JSF2 came out.