Recovery suit - statute of limitation

Recovery suit - statute of limitation My father's friend owed him some money. For the same the collateral that he gave was a cheque and promisory note. He's has been delaying the payment for a long time and now we are planning to go ahead with the legal proceedings. While going through the documents, i noticed that the cheque and promisory note both have date of 20/12/2019 on them. So as a result NIA is ruled out. Also on the civil recovery suit front, we are beyond the 3 years period by 4 months. Is it still possible to successfully file this case even though we have crossed the period of 3 years under the statute of limitation? What is usually a valid reason that the judge usually considers in such cases? Is COVID going to provide us any relief while calculating the duration? A friend adviced me that since my father passed away in 7/2019, I can ask for consideration from the judge on the grounds that I was taking over the family matters and this as a result got delayed. Pls suggest what would be the best possible legal recourse.