A bstract A search for neutral Higgs bosons of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) is reported. The analysis is based on a sample of proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The data were recorded in 2011 and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 4.7 fb −1 to 4.8 fb −1 . Higgs boson decays into oppositely-charged muon or τ lepton pairs are considered for final states requiring either the presence or absence of b -jets. No statistically significant excess over the expected background is observed and exclusion limits at the 95% confidence level are derived. The exclusion limits are for the production cross-section of a generic neutral Higgs boson, ϕ , as a function of the Higgs boson mass and for h / A / H production in the MSSM as a function of the parameters m A and tan β in the $ m_h^{\max } $ scenario for m A in the range of 90 GeV to 500 GeV.