org.hibernate.QueryParameterException: could not locate named parameter

My project setting are Spring MVC, Hibernate 3.2.x, on MySQL DB

Getting the following error:

org.hibernate.QueryParameterException: could not locate named parameter email

Approach #1:

@Override
public Boolean isExist(String email) {
    boolean flag = false;  
    String hql = "from com.cmgr.beans.UserAccount u where u.email = :email";
    List<UserAccount> result = currentSession().createQuery(hql)
        .setParameter("email", email)
        .list();

    UserAccount userAccount = (UserAccount)result.get(0);
    if (userAccount!=null && userAccount.getEmail().equalsIgnoreCase(email)) {
        flag = true;
    }

    return flag;
}

Approach #2:

 @Override
    public Boolean isExist(String email) {
        boolean flag = false;
        String hql = "from com.cmgr.beans.UserAccount u where u.email = :email";
        List<UserAccount> result = currentSession().createQuery(hql).setString("email", email).list();

        UserAccount userAccount = (UserAccount) result.get(0);
        if (userAccount != null && userAccount.getEmail().equalsIgnoreCase(email)) {
            flag = true;
        }
        return flag;
    }

Error:

java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Parameter email does not exist as a named parameter in [from com.cmgr.beans.UserAccount u where u.email = :email]

UserAccount class:

package com.cmgr.beans;

import java.io.Serializable;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Set;
import javax.persistence.*;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Autowired;
import org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.Qualifier;

@Entity
@Table(name = "user_account")
public class UserAccount implements Serializable {

    @Autowired
    @Id
    @GeneratedValue(strategy = GenerationType.IDENTITY, generator = "user_account_seq")
    @SequenceGenera