Batik Incompatible object argument for function ca

I am seeing the following error while trying to load an svg document in to JSVG panel.

Exception occurred in target VM: (class: org/apache/batik/bridge/BridgeContext, method: dispose signature: ()V) Incompatible object argument for function call 
java.lang.VerifyError: (class: org/apache/batik/bridge/BridgeContext, method: dispose signature: ()V) Incompatible object argument for function call
    at org.apache.batik.swing.svg.JSVGComponent.createBridgeContext(Unknown Source)
    at org.apache.batik.swing.svg.JSVGComponent.installSVGDocument(Unknown Source)
    at org.apache.batik.swing.JSVGCanvas.installSVGDocument(Unknown Source)
    at org.apache.batik.swing.svg.JSVGComponent$2.run(Unknown Source)
    at org.apache.batik.swing.svg.JSVGComponent.stopThenRun(Unknown Source)
    at org.apache.batik.swing.svg.JSVGComponent.setSVGDocument(Unknown Source)
    at org.netbeans.modules.plantumlnb.SVGImagePreviewPanel.renderSVGFile(SVGImagePreviewPanel.java:48)
    at org.netbeans.modules.plantumlnb.RenderImageThread$1.run(RenderImageThread.java:56)
    at java.awt.event.InvocationEvent.dispatch(InvocationEvent.java:251)
    at java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEventImpl(EventQueue.java:733)
    at java.awt.EventQueue.access$200(EventQueue.java:103)
    at java.awt.EventQueue$3.run(EventQueue.java:694)
    at java.awt.EventQueue$3.run(EventQueue.java:692)
    at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
    at java.security.ProtectionDomain$1.doIntersectionPrivilege(ProtectionDomain.java:76)
    at java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEvent(EventQueue.java:703)
    at org.netbeans.core.TimableEventQueue.dispatchEvent(TimableEventQueue.java:159)
    at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpOneEventForFilters(EventDispatchThread.java:242)
    at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForFilter(EventDispatchThread.java:161)
    at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForHierarchy(EventDispatchThread.java:150)
    at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(EventDispatchThread.java:146)
    at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(EventDispatchThread.java:138)
    at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.run(EventDispatchThread.java:91)

Here is the relevant code.

canvas.setSVGDocument(createSVGDocument(new StringReader(imageContent)));

I am not sure what I am doing wrong here. Any help is appreciated.

I think the incompatibility lies not between your application and batik but between batik and one of its required libraries which is either not present or exists in a different version. Typical candidates are the xml utility libraries which might come into your environment together with other software using it, e.g. xml-apis.jar. Another possibility to get into trouble is to use a Java version which is too old as the included DOM API classes change from version to version.