The incident came to light when passenger Surya Oruganti tweeted about the incident to the app-based ride-hailing service. Oruganti claims that he boarded the cab at the Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru, the capital city of the southern state of Karnataka, and to his surprise, he discovered that the driver wasn't the one indicated on the app and that he was overly drunk. Considering the driver's impaired condition and his need to get to his destination, Oruganti decided to drive himself home. He then shot a video of the driver and asked him several questions about the vehicle's owner before exiting the vehicle.

An Uber passenger in the city of Bengaluru in India tweeted that his Uber driver was drunk beyond good sense when he arrived at the pickup location. As a result, the passenger was forced to get behind the wheel and navigate his way home, with the Uber driver comfortably sleeping in the passenger seat.

Oruganti tweeted: "The ride back from Bangalore airport was not quite what I expected. The driver was drunk and drowsy. I had to pull the car over to the side and I drove all the way home. The pic with the driver in the rider seat passed out. You need to fix this @Uber, @Uber_Support." He also mentioned that when he shot the video of the driver, and that the driver was not aware he was being recorded.

In another tweet he talks about Uber's response: "Uber safety team promptly called back about 20 hours later. They said I shouldn't drive a cab because that's a safety issue. And that they'll educate the driver whatever that means and might terminate the driver if there's recurrence."

After a series of tweets by Oruganti and other Twitter users, Uber tweeted to Surya to explain the actions they have taken: "Hey Surya, thank you again for speaking with us. As confirmed to you, the driver partner's account has been flagged and his access to our app has been barred. We would like to assure you that we take action upon such incidents very seriously."