I have tried the servlet gotopage method by Maha, here is the method; ServletUtilities.gotoPage("/Accounts/list_deputations.jsp",getServletContext(),request,response);public static void gotoPage(String address,ServletContext context,HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response)throws ServletException, IOException {RequestDispatcher dispatcher = context.getRequestDispatcher(response.encodeURL(address));System.out.println("Dispatch forward to ="+address);dispatcher.forward(request,response);} I get the following error java.lang.NullPointerException at javax.servlet.GenericServlet.getServletContext(GenericServlet.java:205) at ServletUtilities.gotoPage(ServletUtility.java:81) the same redirection request works with response.sendRedirect("/Accounts/list_deputations.jsp"); I double checked my tomcat4.0.4 setup with this url:http://www.moreservlets.com/Using-Tomcat-4.html#Servlet-Reloading Why? and how to solve it?