I am working on a RED-HAT 7.3 and the file originated on a windows 2000 system. But before I executed the command I opened the file on a vi editor and did not see any ^M characters. Also I just now tried to create a new file using vi editor and then tried the same command. Now I did not see any ^M characters. So you are right, the one-liner is fine. So maybe it has got something to do with the file being originated in wondows.
Thanks for your help.