The lichen was formally described as a new species in 2018 by Santosh Joshi, Pradeep Divakar, H. Thorsten Lumbsch, and Robert Lücking.

The specific epithet upretii honours Indian lichenologist Dalip Kumar Upreti, "on the occasion of his retirement".

The ascomata are numerous and scattered throughout the thallus, some immersed in the surface and some more prominent; all have rounded to oval pores.

No secondary compounds were detected in the lichen using thin-layer chromatography, and all of the standard chemical spot tests are negative.

[1] Ocellularia upretii is widespread in evergreen forests of the Western Ghats, and tropical rainforests of Andaman and Nicobar Islands and the Eastern Himalayas.