Seam AutoCreate not working?

I am trying to Inject a seam component into another, auto creating it. But for some reason the injected seam component throws NPE.

XHTML

                   <a4j:commandLink id="cbrModal"
                                     action="#{detailAction.showInformation(1L)}"
                                     reRender="DetailModal"
                                     limitToList="true">
                        <h:outputText value="text"/>

                    </a4j:commandLink>

DetailActionBean.java

@Name("detailAction")
public class DetailActionBean implements Serializable {

    @In(create = true, required = false)
    @Out(required = false)
    private RulesValidator rulesValidator;

   public void showInformation(long id) {

                rulesValidator.setCheckCount(0); // rulesValidator == null here and throws npe

   }
)

RulesValidator.java

@AutoCreate
@Name("rulesValidator")
@Scope(ScopeType.SESSION)
public class RulesValidator implements Serializable {

    private int checkCount = 0;
    public void setCheckCount(int checkCount) {
        this.checkCount = checkCount;
    }


}

Seam will scan a base package and look for @Name components and then those components are auto wireable. I am supposed to put a seam.properties file (empty) for seam to know which base packages to scan. The module I was working on dint have seam.properties and so RulesValidator was not being scanned and treated as a seam component. Hence autoCreate dint work.