New dawn at Sunrise General Store?
Member of family, which has had bitter feud over holdings, says he’ll reopen business
There is a fresh coat of paint on the Sunrise General Store on Old Las Vegas Highway, and one member of the fractured family that owns the shuttered gas station and convenience store said he intends to reopen it this month.
But public records show a bitter family feud over the family’s holdings — and what’s best for matriarch Savita Bhakta — remain unresolved.
Bhakta’s son, Jagdish Bhakta, and daughter, Rita Bhakta, have accused each other of mistreating their mother and cast themselves in court documents as her protector.
For decades, the Bhakta family, headed by Savita and her late husband, Dahyabhai “DB” Bhakta, had been successful in Santa Fe business circles. In a 2002 interview, Nitin Bhakta — the couple’s eldest son, who died in 2004 — estimated the family’s worth was then $4 million.
But after DB Bhakta died in 2015, the family’s business ventures fell into decline. The Sunrise General Store closed a few years after his death, and the Western Scene Motel on Cerrillos Road, which the couple owned since 1981, closed in April 2019 after the discovery of infrastructure issues that may cost as much as $100,000 to repair.
For the past several years, Savita Bhakta appears to have been caught in a tug of war between her two surviving children.
Her former attorney, Robert Richards, recently said he suspects the 79-year-old is being manipulated and should be evaluated to determine whether she is competent. He filed a motion in September, telling the court he did not believe Savita has the capacity to manage and protect her properties. He added he believed “her decisions show all the signs of undue influence.”
“Here we have a woman who is clearly being pressured,” Richards said in a recent phone interview.
Richards became involved last year when Savita Bhakta hired him to obtain a permanent restraining order against Jagdish and his wife, Jaimina Bhakta, and have them thrown off the premises of the Western Scene Motel.
Savita Bhakta said in her petition she wanted to sell the Sunrise General Store and use the money to refurbish the motel. She said her son had been removing and selling items from the rooms, taking money from her bank account and renting rooms to transients for cash he never gave her.
The court issued a permanent injunction in February 2019, ordering Jagdish Bhakta and his wife to vacate the hotel and stay away from his mother, the gas station and the motel.
But a year later, the family’s dynamics seem to have done a 180-degree turn.
When a reporter stopped by the motel recently to speak to someone about the activity at the Sunrise, Jagdish Bhakta —
who is still under a court order to stay away from his mother — emerged and said his mother has been living with him.
He also said his mom had run away from his sister because she was being mistreated.
Jagdish added he was reopening the Sunrise with $450,000 given to him by “a friend.”
A year after seeking a permanent restraining order against her son, Savita Bhakta has filed a motion asking for the order to be lifted.
In the petition, Savita Bhakta accused her daughter of orchestrating the previous legal proceeding, slapping her in the face, stealing $800,000 worth of gold coins and running the family businesses into the ground, among other things.
The motion says Savita Bhakta has given power of attorney — formerly bestowed on her daughter — to Jagdish and his wife.
Rita Bhakta did not respond to calls seeking comment. But an attorney she hired last year told the court she denied the accusations, adding it appeared Jagdish Bhakta and his wife were creating the documents Savita Bhakta was signing.
The attorney also wrote Jagdish Bhakta and his wife seemed to be “attempting to secure control of valuable property owned by Savita and attempting to destroy the relationship between Rita and Savita for their own ends.”
Richards said he showed up at a recent hearing on the motion only to be told his services were no longer needed because Savita Bhakta had a new lawyer, Slate Stern.
Richards said he raised the issue of Savita Bhakta’s competency but “the court expressed no interest in that.”
Stern declined to comment beyond noting he had been hired for the limited purpose of obtaining a continuance in the case.
A hearing at which a judge will consider lifting the restraining order keeping Jagdish Bhakta from having contact with his mother has been reset for Wednesday.
A spokeswoman for the New Mexico Environment Department recently confirmed the state has been working with a company called Nitsimran LTD Co. to make sure the Sunrise General Store’s gas tanks are up to code in preparation for a reopening.
Records from the Secretary of State’s Office show Nitsimran was organized by Nitin Bhakta in 1997 and its certificate of organization should have been valid through 2047. However, the certificate has been revoked and the company is “not in good standing,” documents show.
A spokesman for the Secretary of State’s Office said the certificate had been revoked because the registered agent stepped down in 2018 and no one replaced him.
On Tuesday, Jaimina Bhakta oversaw a bustling crew of workers in the parking lot at the general store property. She denied she or her husband had pressured her mother-in-law into anything. She said they were caring for her and nursing her back to health.
Savita Bhakta watched from inside the store.
When a reporter asked to speak to Savita Bhakta, her daughter-in-law stepped in and said, “I’m the power of attorney now.”
But Savita Bhakta — who needs an interpreter during court hearings to translate the proceedings into her native Indian dialect, Gujarati — came outside and listened to the conversation.
She smiled when she was addressed directly. But it was unclear whether she understood a reporter’s questions and didn’t reply before her daughter-in-law ushered her back inside.
Savita Bhakta did not respond to phone messages seeking comment.
A year after seeking a permanent restraining order against her son, Savita Bhakta has filed a motion asking for the order to be lifted.