Service Module ERROR : No JSON Could be decoded

[mohan....@gmail.com]

ansible --version
ansible 2.1.1.0
  config file = /etc/ansible/ansible.cfg
  configured module search path = Default w/o overrides


While running the below playbook , i'm getting JSON object error at the service stop level .

---
- hosts: all
  become: yes
  gather_facts: yes

  tasks:
 
  - name: start conn drain
    command: /etc/init.d/egw drain
    ignore_errors: True

  - uri:
      url: http://{{ ansible_hostname }}:7777/stats
      return_content: yes 
      register: stats_page
      until: ( "/io/tcp/listening::active = 1"  in stats_page.content )
      retries: 60
      delay: 3

  - name: Stop the  service
    service: name=egw state=stopped
    ignore_errors: True

===========

TASK [Stop the EGW service] ******************************

**********************
fatal: [xxxxxxx.com]: FAILED! => {"changed": false, "failed": true, "module_stderr": "", "module_stdout": "\r\nTraceback (most recent call last):\r\n  File \"/tmp/ansible_Hg86yp/ansible_module_service.py\", line 1518, in <module>\r\n    main()\r\n  File \"/tmp/ansible_Hg86yp/ansible_module_service.py\", line 1480, in main\r\n    (rc, out, err) = service.modify_service_state()\r\n  File \"/tmp/ansible_Hg86yp/ansible_module_service.py\", line 311, in modify_service_state\r\n    return self.service_control()\r\n  File \"/tmp/ansible_Hg86yp/ansible_module_service.py\", line 894, in service_control\r\n    rc_state, stdout, stderr = self.execute_command(\"%s %s %s\" % (svc_cmd, self.action, arguments), daemonize=True)\r\n  File \"/tmp/ansible_Hg86yp/ansible_module_service.py\", line 256, in execute_command\r\n    return json.loads(data)\r\n  File \"/usr/lib64/python2.6/json/__init__.py\", line 307, in loads\r\n    return _default_decoder.decode(s)\r\n  File \"/usr/lib64/python2.6/json/decoder.py\", line 319, in decode\r\n    obj, end = self.raw_decode(s, idx=_w(s, 0).end())\r\n  File \"/usr/lib64/python2.6/json/decoder.py\", line 338, in raw_decode\r\n    raise ValueError(\"No JSON object could be decoded\")\r\nValueError: No JSON object could be decoded\r\n", "msg": "MODULE FAILURE", "parsed": false}

Anyone got the same error ? Need help on this....

Thank you