base-files package update fails with error: "date: cannot set date: Operation not permitted"

[Hugo Vaz]

# apt-get upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be upgraded:
  base-files
1 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/66.8 kB of archives.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
(Reading database ... 57571 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace base-files 6.4ubuntu5 (using .../base-files_6.4ubuntu5.1_amd64.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement base-files ...
Processing triggers for install-info ...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Processing triggers for cracklib-runtime ...
Setting up base-files (6.4ubuntu5.1) ...
date: cannot set date: Operation not permitted
Sun Jul 8 12:27:50 UTC 2012
dpkg: error processing base-files (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: base-files 6.4ubuntu5.1
Uname: Linux 2.6.18-238.19.1.el5.028stab092.2 x86_64
ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu4
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sun Jul 8 16:28:02 2012
Dependencies:

ProcEnviron: SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: base-files
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to oneiric on 2012-05-29 (40 days ago)

[Vitaly Lipatov (lav-etersoft)]

I did resolve it with follow commands:
 # cd /tmp
 # ln -s /bin/true date
 # PATH=./:$PATH dpkg --configure base-files
 # rm date